2014-2015 Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Overall performance^{Footnote 1}

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) completed 75.8% of their requests in inventory in 2014-2015. While the overall performance of CSIS appears to have decreased, it can be explained in part by the statistical changes made by TBS in how they require institutions to capture the data.^{Footnote 2}

Workload

In 2014-2015, CSIS received 366 formal requests and 298 informal requests, for a combined total of 664 requests. In comparison, it received 903 requests in 2013-2014.^{Footnote 3}

The majority of formal requests received in 2014-2015 were from the media (48.1%), followed by the public (38.3%).

CSIS completed 314 requests this reporting period. The completion rate was 75.8%,^{Footnote 4} which is below the government-wide rate of 85.1%. In 2013-2014, the completion rate for CSIS was 95.0%. Also, the 298 informal requests received in 2014-2015 were all completed within 15 days.

The number of consultations received by CSIS from other federal government institutions decreased from 317 to 234, representing a decrease of 26.2% compared to 2013-2014.

In total, CSIS processed 40,300 pages in 2014-2015. The average number of pages processed per completed request decreased from 173 in 2013-2014 to 147 in 2014-2015.

The information released by the CSIS was mostly in paper format: 115 in paper format compared to 18 in electronic format.

Table 1. Workload

Request completion time

Timeliness

Figure 1 reveals that 66.2% of requests were completed within 30 days or less, which is a decrease of 18.0% from 2013-2014. The proportion of requests completed between 31 and 60 days increased by 2.1% from 2013-2014 and a 9.9% increase is observed in the proportion of requests completed between 61 and 120 days.

Figure 1: Request Completion Time

Extensions

CSIS took a total of 101 extensions in 2014-2015 compared to 106 in 2013-2014. The most common reason for taking an extension was consultations (76.2%), followed by interference with operations (23.8%).

Figure 2 shows that 10.9% of the extensions taken in 2014-2015 were for 30 days or less, which is 5.2% higher than in 2013-2014. The proportion of extensions taken between 31 and 60 days in 2014-2015 was 12.9%, which is a marginal increase over the previous period. In 2014-2015, we also observed a 5.0% increase in extensions that required more than 365 days compared to the previous period where there were zero.

Figure 2: Length of Extensions

Deemed refusals

In 2014-2015, there was only one request closed past the statutory deadline^{Footnote 5} which was delayed between 31 and 60 days. This rate represents an "A" grade.^{Footnote 6} CSIS cited "other" as the reason for not meeting the statutory deadline of this request.

Disclosure

Percentage of requests for which information was disclosed

In 2014-2015, 3 completed requests were entirely disclosed while the number of partially disclosed requests was 130 in 2014-2015. This represents an increase of 13.2% in 2013-2014 in the number of partially disclosed requests (see Figure 3). Almost 25.5% of requests were "neither confirmed nor denied." This is the highest category of disclosure statistic reported for the 24 institutions.

Figure 3: Level of Disclosure

Exemptions

The average number of exemptions used per completed request completed increased from 0.87 in 2013-2014 to 2.62 in 2014-2015 (see Table 2). The most used exemptions in 2014-2015 were section 16 (Law Enforcement and Investigations) (29.2%) and section 15 (International Affairs and Defence) (26.0%), followed by section 19 (Personal Information) (12.2%).

Table 2: Exemptions

Complaints at the OIC

In 2014-2015, the OIC received 27 complaints^{Footnote 7} against CSIS. The majority of complaints were refusals (24 refusals and 3 administrative complaints).

There were 2 well-founded and resolved complaints, 3 not well-founded, 2 discontinued and 20 complaints were pending resolution.