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AI-Powered English-French Translation for Government

Translation & Language Access

What it collects

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Text and document files submitted by Government of Canada employees and GC applications via API for translation. The register confirms no personal information is involved.
Run by
Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC)
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

Translation & Language Access

GCtranslate is a secure, enterprise-grade AI tool used by Government of Canada employees to translate text and documents between English and French. It uses neural machine translation to speed up the production of bilingual content for internal and non-official publication needs. The system operates at the Protected B security level and does not process personal information. Users are informed that AI is being used.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Text and document files submitted by Government of Canada employees and GC applications via API for translation. The register confirms no personal information is involved.

Processing

Language Models
  • Neural machine translation models provided by Microsoft Azure, pre-trained by the vendor. Supports glossary and terminology customization. No PSPC-provided training corpora are used at this time.

What it does

Understanding (Semantic AI)
Human decides
  • The system understands source-language text and produces translated output. Human reviewers and users decide whether the translation meets their needs and whether to publish or use it.
Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • Neural machine translation generates new translated text in the target language. The translated output is new content authored by the system and reviewed by the human user before use.

Outputs

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • Translated text and documents in the target language (English or French), produced by the neural machine translation engine. No personal information is contained in the output.

Run by

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC)
  • Federal department responsible for deploying and operating GCtranslate as an enterprise AI translation service for Government of Canada employees.

GCtranslate AI Register Entry

Built by

Microsoft Azure
  • Cloud technology vendor supplying the underlying neural machine translation models and infrastructure for GCtranslate. Training data is provided by the vendor's pre-trained models.

GCtranslate AI Register Entry

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • Usage analytics are available to Public Services and Procurement Canada for monitoring system performance and translation activity. Role-based access controls govern which GC employees can use the system.
Not available to me
  • GCtranslate is an internal Government of Canada tool for GC employees. Translation outputs and usage data are not accessible to members of the public as this is an enterprise internal system.

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 Government of Canada discloses AI use to users of GCtranslate. Users are informed that AI is being used to perform translation before or during their interaction with the system.
  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyGCtranslate is listed in the Government of Canada's public AI and algorithmic tools register. The register entry describes the system's capabilities, data sources, vendor, and that it uses neural machine translation technology.

Risks and safeguards

No risks or safeguards have been published for this system yet.