AI Assistant for Government Employee Productivity

Employment & Work

What it collects that can identify you

Sensitive personal information

Identifiable data

Employee work content including emails, documents, chats, and calendar data within Microsoft 365, which is associated with identifiable GC employees by account credentials.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Also collects operational data, which is anonymized data.

Run by: Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC)
Where: No fixed location
Kept: Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with: Accountable organization, Vendor

What it is for

Employment & Work

M365 Copilot is an AI-powered assistant embedded in Microsoft 365 tools, deployed to all employees at the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. It helps staff draft documents, summarize information, and complete tasks more efficiently using generative AI. The system is operated by a federal government department, with Microsoft acting as the technology vendor. Employees should be aware that their work content and queries may be processed by Microsoft's AI systems.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Sensitive personal information

Identifiable data

Employee work content including emails, documents, chats, and calendar data within Microsoft 365, which is associated with identifiable GC employees by account credentials.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Operational data

Anonymized data

Organizational documents, policies, files, and shared content within the FCAC Microsoft 365 tenant that Copilot draws on to ground its responses.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Processing

Language Models

Microsoft's large language models (GPT-based, via Azure OpenAI Service) power Copilot's text generation, summarization, and comprehension capabilities within Microsoft 365 applications.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)

Human decides

Generates text, summaries, drafts, and other content within Microsoft 365 applications in response to employee prompts. Employees review and decide whether to use, edit, or discard the generated output.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Understanding (Semantic AI)

Human decides

Understands and retrieves meaning from employee documents, emails, and other organizational content within Microsoft 365, enabling search, summarization, and contextual assistance.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Outputs

Generated content

Identifiable data

AI-generated text including document drafts, email replies, meeting summaries, and other work content produced within Microsoft 365 tools for individual employees.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Run by

Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC)

Federal government agency that deployed M365 Copilot to all its employees to improve efficiencies and generate value in AI-assisted hours.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Built by

Microsoft

Microsoft is the technology vendor that builds and licenses M365 Copilot, supplying the underlying AI models and Microsoft 365 platform integration.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization

Copilot interaction logs and generated outputs may be accessible to FCAC administrators through Microsoft 365 admin and compliance tooling.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

Available to vendor

Microsoft, as the technology vendor, processes employee prompts and organizational content to deliver Copilot responses, subject to the terms of the Microsoft commercial data protection agreement.

Government of Canada AI Register — M365 Copilot (FCAC, 2526-FCAC-ACFC-001)

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 UseFCAC employees are informed that M365 Copilot is an AI system integrated into their Microsoft 365 tools. Content generated by Copilot is presented within the application interface, making AI involvement visible at the point of use.
Right to Algorithmic TransparencyEmployees can consult Microsoft's published documentation on how M365 Copilot works, including its use of large language models and its data-processing commitments. The Government of Canada AI Register entry for this system is publicly accessible.

Risks and safeguards

Psychological harmRisk that employees over-rely on AI-generated content or experience anxiety about AI monitoring of their work activity.Safeguard: employees retain full control over whether to use, edit, or discard Copilot output; the system is advisory only and human employees make all final decisions about the work product.
Societal & cultural harmRisk that AI-generated drafts homogenize government communications or introduce subtle inaccuracies into official documents.Safeguard: all Copilot outputs are reviewed by human employees before use; the system is a drafting assistant, not an autonomous author of official government records.