Investigation into the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s implementation of the Direction on Prescribed Presence in the Workplace

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) investigated a complaint against the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) regarding its personal information practices for monitoring employee on-site presence under the federal government's hybrid work model. The complainant alleged invasive collection, use, and disclosure of personal information, questioning TBS's compliance with sections 4, 6, 7, and 8 of the Privacy Act, as well as transparency, necessity, proportionality, and Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) requirements. The OPC found that TBS's collection of aggregated data for organizational compliance was for non-administrative purposes, authorized by existing statutes, and appropriately de-identified to fall outside the scope of the Act for disclosure. For individual compliance, managers primarily relied on observation and self-reporting, supported by internal guidance. While TBS's practices were largely compliant, the OPC encouraged TBS to update its Personal Information Bank (PIB) description for Physical Access Controls (PSU 907) to explicitly reflect the potential use of access logs in formal investigations and to clearly communicate this to employees. Overall, the OPC concluded that TBS's personal information handling practices were compliant with the Privacy Act.