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Helpful Places

Government of Canada – DTPR AI Register

AI-Assisted Code Generation for Software Development

Employment & Work

What it collects

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Source code files, code comments, and development context (e.g. open editor tabs, project structure) provided by the developer to the AI tool at the time a suggestion is requested. No personal information about veterans or the public is involved.
Run by
Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization

What it is for

Employment & Work

Veterans Affairs Canada is piloting AI tools that suggest and generate code to help software developers write and maintain applications more efficiently. This system is used internally by government employees and does not involve personal information about veterans or the public. The department is measuring productivity gains to decide whether to expand use of the technology.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Source code files, code comments, and development context (e.g. open editor tabs, project structure) provided by the developer to the AI tool at the time a suggestion is requested. No personal information about veterans or the public is involved.

Processing

Language Models
  • Large language models trained on code and natural language, as implemented by JetBrains AI Assistant and GitHub Copilot, are used to predict and generate code completions in response to developer prompts and context.

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • The AI generates code suggestions, completions, and snippets that a developer reviews and accepts, modifies, or rejects. The human developer retains final decision-making authority over every piece of code that enters the codebase.

Outputs

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • Code suggestions, completions, and boilerplate generated by the AI tools and surfaced to the developer within the integrated development environment. Output does not contain personal information.

Run by

Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC)
  • Federal government department responsible for deploying and overseeing this AI code-generation pilot for internal software development teams.

Government of Canada AI Register — 2526-VAC-ACC-006

Built by

JetBrains / GitHub Copilot
  • Commercial vendors supplying the AI code-generation tools used in this pilot. JetBrains and GitHub Copilot (a Microsoft product) are the identified technology providers.

Government of Canada AI Register — 2526-VAC-ACC-006

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • Outputs (generated code suggestions) are available only to the GC software development employees using the tools. No personal information is produced; access is limited to the internal development team.

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 UseGC employees using this tool are informed that AI is in use. The register confirms that AI use is disclosed to users (AI use disclosed to users: Y).
  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyThis pilot is listed on the Government of Canada's public AI register, providing transparency about the nature of the tools and their intended use for internal software development. Employees may consult departmental IT and privacy policies for further information.

Risks and safeguards

  • Societal & cultural harmOver-reliance on AI-generated code could erode developer skills over time or introduce subtle errors not caught by reviewers.Safeguard: The pilot explicitly retains human decision-making at every code-acceptance step, and team velocity metrics are being collected to monitor actual outcomes during the pilot period before any broader rollout decision.