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Helpful Places

Government of Canada – DTPR AI Register

AI-Automated Discovery of Government Business Support Programs

Inform · Planning & Decision-making

What it collects

About a place
Anonymized data
  • Public federal and provincial government websites containing information about business-support programs. These are publicly accessible URLs and page content; no personal data is involved.
Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Program descriptions, eligibility criteria, funding amounts, application deadlines, and contact information published on official government websites. This is administrative and program-catalogue data, not personal information.
Run by
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization
Your copy
You cannot see the data it holds about you. What you can do

What it is for

InformPlanning & Decision-making

This system uses machine learning and natural language processing to automatically scan federal and provincial government websites, extract details about business support programs, and prepare structured data for government staff to review before publishing to the Innovation Canada Business Benefits Finder. It is not used directly by the public — it operates behind the scenes to keep program listings accurate and up to date. No personal information about individuals is collected or processed by this system.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About a place
Anonymized data
  • Public federal and provincial government websites containing information about business-support programs. These are publicly accessible URLs and page content; no personal data is involved.
Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Program descriptions, eligibility criteria, funding amounts, application deadlines, and contact information published on official government websites. This is administrative and program-catalogue data, not personal information.

Processing

Language Models
  • Natural language processing is used to interpret and extract relevant program details from unstructured web page text, classifying content into structured fields suitable for the Business Benefits Finder database.
Classification & Prediction
  • Machine learning models classify web content to determine whether a page describes a business-support program and to extract structured fields (program type, eligibility, funding) from the raw text.

What it does

Sensing (Perceptive AI)
Human decides
  • The web crawler scans official government websites and the web scraper extracts structured program details from the discovered pages. Officers review the extracted data before it is uploaded to the Business Benefits Finder, meaning humans decide what enters the published database.
Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human decides
  • Machine learning and natural language processing classify and structure extracted web content into program-relevant fields (e.g. program name, eligibility, funding amount), producing structured data for officer review rather than making autonomous publication decisions.

Outputs

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Structured program-listing records (program name, description, eligibility, funding details, source URL) extracted and formatted for government officer review prior to publication on the Business Benefits Finder. No personal information is included in outputs.

Run by

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)
  • The federal department that deploys and operates the Business Benefits Finder Daily Web Crawler and Daily Web Scraper to automate the discovery and updating of business-support program listings on the Innovation Canada platform.

Government of Canada AI Register — 2526-ISED-ISDE-008

Built by

Government of Canada
  • The system was developed internally by the Government of Canada, with no external vendor identified in the register entry.

Government of Canada AI Register — 2526-ISED-ISDE-008

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • The structured extracted data is available to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada officers for review before publication. It is not made available to the general public in its raw extracted form.
Not available to me
  • The raw extracted program data and the internal review queue are not accessible to members of the public or to businesses directly. Only the final reviewed and approved listings appear on the public Business Benefits Finder.

Stored

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the Helpful Places, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyThis system is disclosed on the Government of Canada's Algorithmic Impact Assessment register (ID: 2526-ISED-ISDE-008), which describes how the web crawler and scraper work. The register is publicly accessible. Members of the public or businesses wishing to understand how program listings are sourced may consult the register entry.
  • Right to Be Informed of AI UseThe register entry notes that AI use is not currently disclosed to the users of the Business Benefits Finder platform. Businesses using the platform are not informed that AI tools are used to compile program listings. This is an identified gap in the current deployment.

Risks and safeguards

  • Societal & cultural harmIf the AI incorrectly classifies or omits programs, Canadian businesses — particularly smaller or less digitally prominent ones — may not find relevant support opportunities, creating inequitable access to government funding.Safeguard: Government officers review all extracted data before it is published to the Business Benefits Finder, providing a human checkpoint that can catch errors or omissions before they affect the public-facing database.
  • Reputational harmInaccurate or outdated program information published via the Business Benefits Finder could mislead businesses, damaging trust in government information services.Safeguard: The human review step before publication is the primary safeguard. The system is designed to improve timeliness and accuracy over manual processes; officers retain final authority over what is published.