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Information Technology Strategy Team

Enable the strategic value of IT within ESDC by reducing its risks to accelerate business flexibility.

Human Development Life Cycle

The vision of Human Development Life Cycle (HDLC) is when the government of canada can follow a citizens from cradle to grave, providing services through modern technologies and interacting seamlessly with them through digital infrastructure.

What can prevent implementation of HDLC

  1. The ability to freely collect information as it is governed by existing laws and regulations, such as
    • Privacy Act
    • Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)
    • Provincial privacy laws
  2. Technologies such as block chain may threaten the current centralized model of data management which could challenge the proposed implementation of the HDLC which requires data to be freely available and exchangeable between many levels of government. More research required in this area.

Advantages of decentralizing data outside of government

  • Leverage private sector resources and capabilities (Ex: Facebook’s ability to attract users)
  • Increased public choice (citizens opt what data to make available)
  • Higher resiliency and availability due to no single-point of failures
  • Improves the ability to gain a complete picture of all data held about an individual, within the legal boundaries provided
  • Using AI learn to predict correct information based on a plethora of information available (public or otherwise)

Disadvantages of decentralizing data outside of government

  • Frequent and constant interoperability endpoint updates required
  • Higher complexity for data correlation due to lack of unified interoperability standards
  • Possible legal complications with respect to obtaining consent from individuals
  • Data duplication which complicates data management (four primary addresses for one person)
  • Higher complexity of Identity Management (possible AI application - facial recognition on profile pictures)

A Story of The Singh family’s Human Development Lifecycle (HDLC)

Maman and Papa Singh found out that they’re pregnant May 1st, 2019 after confirming the news with their family doctor. At their preferred banking institution, an account is opened with a deposit equal to their parental benefits.

On Dec 3rd, 2019 Louise Singh is born

  • Canada Child Benefit is activated and deposited into their Canada Child Benefit account and CRA is notified
  • The Singh’s EI Family supplements are deposited
  • Papa Singh is a member of the Canadian military, ESDC extends his EI benefits
  • The government creates Louise Singh’s Registered Education Savings Plan account and deposits $100 to further promote education for Canadians.

Louise Singh goes to school and, while attending high school, the government is notifying her of local summer job opportunities through the ESDC Facebook account. Throughout her high school years, through her publicly available information, ESDC notifies her about Youth Employment Strategy programs which match her interests. The offer that that caught Louise’s eye is bioengineering.

Takes bioengineering at a university from the UK. The Singh family uses the RESP account to fund part of the studies. The registration to the UK’s University means Louise needs a passport. The University registration process includes a step to generate a digital passport for Louise because the UK is a member of Canada’s Digital Government Partners. Louise passport is digital and therefore available on her smartphone.

After graduation, Louise wants to come back to Canada to work in her field. Her foreign university degree in bioengineering is recognized by the Canadian Society of Professional Engineers because those institutions leverage the government as a platform services to map education credits across recognize foreign institutions.

The government, via its data sharing agreements with the industry and through ESDC’s Job Bank program, is able to recommend job opportunities to Louise via social media or other job finding services she uses.

Louise starts receiving salary from her employer. After 8 years working for the same employer she looses her job. ESDC is notified by her employer through our available IT services. In response, ESDC deposits EI into her EI account through her preferred banking institution. If the money is used the bank will notify ESDC that the citizen has opted into the service. To reduce her stress and anxiety ESDC assists her by beginning to provide her with job opportunities matching her skillset.

Louise finds another engineering job in another province. Shortly thereafter, her parents begin planning their retirement. They decide to retire after 65 years old, at which point ESDC enrols them in the Old Age Security pension and the monthly payment begin to be deposited into their bank accounts.

The Singh parents are planning their end of life. Papa Singh passes away at the age of 80 and the government automatically applies the CPP death benefit by providing the one-time lump-sum payment to the estate on behalf of the CPP contributor. This lump-sum payment is made in accordance to the Singh’s end of life planning with their bank. The Singh never had to interface with the government.

In the above story, “government” can be any federal institutions that happen to administer the service. Whether it be ESDC, a rebranding of ESDC, a decoupling of the ESDC department, or a merger with another department. Such administration of services are not the concern of the citizen. Throughout this process via sentiment analysis ESDC will track the positive impact per dollar spent that a given program has on a citizen based on their public digital footprint.

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