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Helpful Places

Government of Canada – DTPR AI Register

AI Writing and Productivity Assistant for Public Servants

Inform

What it collects that can identify you

About behaviour
Identifiable data
  • Documents and content provided by employees during prompting sessions — for example, draft texts, reports, or other work files shared with Copilot to support editing or summarization tasks.

Also collects operational data, which is anonymized data.

Run by
Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization

What it is for

Inform

Copilot is a general-purpose generative AI tool deployed by the Public Service Commission of Canada for use by its employees. It supports day-to-day productivity tasks such as drafting text, editing documents, summarizing content, translating, and generating images. The system works with content from the departmental intranet and documents employees share during their prompts. Use of the system is disclosed to users, and staff are guided by the Treasury Board Secretariat's Guide on the use of Generative AI and the PSC's own FASTER principles.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Content from the departmental intranet site, including policies, guidance documents, and other institutional resources made available as context for Copilot prompts.
About behaviour
Identifiable data
  • Documents and content provided by employees during prompting sessions — for example, draft texts, reports, or other work files shared with Copilot to support editing or summarization tasks.

Processing

Language Models
  • Copilot is powered by large language models developed and hosted by Microsoft, which process employee prompts and grounding documents to produce text, summaries, translations, and other outputs.

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • Copilot generates text, edits documents, summarizes content, translates, and creates images in response to employee prompts. Employees review and decide whether to use the output.
Understanding (Semantic AI)
Human decides
  • Copilot retrieves relevant context from the departmental intranet and employee-provided documents to ground its responses before generating output.

Outputs

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • Text generated or edited by Copilot, document summaries, translations, and AI-generated images produced in response to employee prompts for use in departmental work.

Run by

Public Service Commission of Canada (PSC)
  • The Public Service Commission of Canada piloted and deployed Copilot for its employees, establishing usage guidelines based on the TBS Guide on Generative AI and its own FASTER principles.

Government of Canada AI Register — Copilot (2526-PSC-CFP-002)

Built by

Microsoft
  • Microsoft builds and supplies Copilot and its premium Microsoft 365 Copilot offering, which the PSC licenses and deploys for its employees.

Government of Canada AI Register — Copilot (2526-PSC-CFP-002)

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • Outputs generated by Copilot are available to the PSC employee who initiated the prompt and to the organization through their Microsoft 365 environment.

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 UsePSC employees are informed that they are using an AI system. The register confirms that AI use is disclosed to users. Staff are guided by the TBS Guide on the use of Generative AI.
  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyEmployees are provided guidance on how Copilot works through the PSC's FASTER principles and the TBS Guide on Generative AI, which explain the general logic and appropriate use of the system.

Risks and safeguards

  • Societal & cultural harmGenerative AI tools can produce inaccurate, biased, or culturally inappropriate content, potentially eroding trust in public communications. The PSC mitigates this by requiring employees to follow the TBS Guide on Generative AI and the FASTER principles, which emphasize human review and responsible use before any AI-generated content is finalized or shared.
  • Loss of autonomyReliance on AI-generated text and summaries could reduce employees' critical engagement with source material. The PSC addresses this through the FASTER principles, which reinforce that employees remain responsible for reviewing and validating all AI-generated outputs before use.