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AI Productivity Assistant for Government Employees

Employment & Work

What it collects

About behaviour
Anonymized data
  • Employee prompts, queries, and task instructions entered into the Copilot Chat interface. Restricted to non-protected, non-classified information per departmental policy.
Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Non-sensitive departmental documents, spreadsheets, emails, and other Microsoft 365 content that employees submit for summarization, drafting assistance, or data analysis.
Run by
Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Vendor, Accountable organization

What it is for

Employment & Work

M365 Copilot Chat is an AI-powered productivity tool provided to all Veterans Affairs Canada employees. It helps staff summarize content, draft documents, analyze data, and automate routine tasks. The system is intended for use with non-sensitive information only and is not approved for protected or classified data. Employees are not currently informed when they encounter AI-generated outputs within this tool.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour
Anonymized data
  • Employee prompts, queries, and task instructions entered into the Copilot Chat interface. Restricted to non-protected, non-classified information per departmental policy.
Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Non-sensitive departmental documents, spreadsheets, emails, and other Microsoft 365 content that employees submit for summarization, drafting assistance, or data analysis.

Processing

Language Models
  • Microsoft's large language model (GPT-4 class) integrated within the Microsoft 365 suite, used to generate text, summarize content, draft documents, and analyze data in response to employee prompts.

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • Generates text, document drafts, and data summaries in response to employee prompts. Employees review and decide whether to use, edit, or discard the AI-generated output.
Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human decides
  • Analyzes and summarizes data and documents on demand, surfacing insights for employees who then decide how to act on them.

Outputs

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • AI-generated text including document drafts, summaries, analyses, and task automation outputs produced for VAC employees. Content is based on non-sensitive departmental inputs.

Run by

Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC)
  • Federal government department that deploys M365 Copilot Chat to all departmental employees as a productivity tool for non-sensitive work.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot Chat

Built by

Microsoft
  • Technology vendor that builds and supplies the M365 Copilot Chat AI system, including the underlying large language model and Microsoft 365 integration.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot Chat

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to vendor
  • Microsoft, as the vendor, processes employee prompts and inputs through its cloud infrastructure to generate responses. Departmental policy restricts inputs to non-protected information, but Microsoft's data processing terms govern what the vendor retains or uses.
Available to the accountable organization
  • Veterans Affairs Canada has access to usage logs and outputs within its Microsoft 365 tenant as the deploying organization, subject to Microsoft's enterprise data governance terms.

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 Be Informed of AI UseThe register states that AI use is NOT currently disclosed to users. Employees interacting with M365 Copilot Chat outputs may not be informed that they are generated by an AI system. This is a transparency gap identified in the official register.
  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyEmployees may seek information about how Copilot Chat works through Veterans Affairs Canada's departmental ATIP (Access to Information and Privacy) office or Microsoft's published model documentation. The register does not specify a formal transparency mechanism for this system.

Risks and safeguards

  • Psychological harmRisk of over-reliance on AI-generated content leading to uncritical acceptance of inaccurate drafts or summaries (automation bias).Safeguard: the system is advisory only — employees decide whether to use, edit, or discard outputs. The register notes AI use is not disclosed to employees, which may increase over-reliance risk. Recommendation: implement clear AI output labelling.
  • Civil liberties harmRisk that sensitive or protected employee or client information is inadvertently entered into the system despite policy restrictions, potentially exposing it to Microsoft's cloud infrastructure.Safeguard: departmental policy explicitly prohibits use with protected or classified information. Technical controls and employee training are expected but not described in the register.