Requirements for Significant Individual Historical Data Search

[mstanton1]

A competent authority may have a need to search for a significant individual who is no longer listed as a significant individual. E.g. the significant individual was listed as a SI 2 years ago and has since ceased. The current search capability only searches current SI's.

Requirements Review 1. Is there any legal obligation (legislation or regulation) for BC Registries to provide the ability to search a historical SI?

Regardless of any SI change activity, the filing history will remain intact as a record of the historical SI change filings and be accessible for review by competent authorities.

2. Do other jurisdictions (Quebec, Federal Government) provide the ability to search historical SI's? @stevenc987 @Apt766525 do you have this information available already, or is it something that could be sourced through websites? If this requires outreach to partners it'd be another good opportunity to introduce me and may be best to come from Steve unless you have counterparts you are in connection with Avinash.

LOTR: The Land Owner Transparency Act Sections 81 and 82 require that documents and records received by the LOTA Administrator are kept at an approved location and destroyed or disposed of only in accordance with the LTSA bylaws or section 3 of the act. Electronic records are retained permanently. Hardcopy documents are scanned upon receipt where they will be retained permanently as scanned images within the LTSA database. Hardcopies of scanned documents are stored offsite for 24 months prior to destruction. Quebec: Retained indefinitely Federal Government: Currently confirming lifecycle intentions. They have completed research and noted that FINTrack, Competent Authorities and others they met with noted information is not valuable after 6 years.

3. Are we required to allow competent authorities access to historical data?

Policy has identified we are required to have this information available. However, this is not required to be a systematic process (could be paper based).

[Apt766525]

@mstanton1 @steveburtch With respect to the competent authorities search, they will have full access to the current full transparency register information that was last filed in the transparency register, and to all the historical filings (those records from the company ledger that the public won’t have access to).

[mstanton1]

@Apt766525 for companies, yes, those can show if they are active or historical. The question is really specific to the SI's listed. If somebody is no longer an SI on a company my understanding is they will not show in the current search being built. Can you review the questions in this ticket further and work with policy to provide further details? Let me know if you have questions on this request.

[Apt766525]

@mstanton1 @steveburtch Worked with policy and confirmed that according to sections 399.46-399.49 of Bill 20 all competent authorities needs access to all information in the entire Registrar’s Transparency Register which includes both active and ceased SI information. All the SI information needs to be accessible to competent authorities including any corrections, additions, or notations made to that information by the Registrar.

[thorwolpert]

Can we get more sepcific here? Is that they can be searched "forever", are they purged after 7 years (that's the CRA standard, prior 6years + the current year). We need to document the data life-cycle.

[Apt766525]

@thorwolpert @mstanton1 @steveburtch As per the discussion with policy earlier a company should be deleting an SI from their TR sometime between the 6th and 7th anniversary of their cessation. The deletion from their internal registry will also require the company to ensure this SI is deleted from the RTR. Legal counsel has confirmed that the Registrar should not do any automatic deletion of an SI that has been ceased for at least 6 years. The responsibility of deletion is on the company to complete when they do their next annual or change filing.

Suggestion from policy: We could try to provide them a little help though, and perhaps in some form provide a message reminding the company of their obligation under section 119.4 and that ceased SI information should be deleted from the company TR and subsequently the RTR if the SI has been ceased for more than 6 years. The registry cannot force them to delete the ceased SI from the RTR but can provide a warning message of their obligations under section 119.4 and 119.52.

If company tries to delete SI from RTR within 6 years from cessation date, messaging should be provided to indicate that perhaps this information should still be present on the company transparency register according to section 119.4. However, the Registry cannot prevent deletion of the ceased SI in this scenario, and SI delete option should be available for the company to select.

[thorwolpert]

Those refer to the transparency records in their local office, and not to the transparency registry owned by the Registrar.

In no where else do we require citizens to manage the document lifecycle owned by government.

I don't think the above statement flows from how we are accepting and handling SI information and TR submission. afaik a business must submit, or certify that their SI information has not changed on an annual basis, which we are tying to their Annual Report. We then disassemble that TR submission for analytics purposes.

The question is when do we remove that filing from our records, and determine any changes to the SI in our analytics services.

[Apt766525]

@thorwolpert Got it. Will work on that and update ASAP.

[Apt766525]

@thorwolpert By “remove the filing from our records”, Are you referring to deleting a Transparency Registry Change filing from the filing history of a company?

[Apt766525]

A private company creates and maintains an internal transparency register at the company records office, and then must file the information in the company’s transparency register with the BC Registry. If the record and the information contained in it appear to meet the applicable requirements, then the Registrar accepts the record and reflects the information contained in the record in the RTR.

[thorwolpert]

Can we stick to the same terms, RTR isn't used anymore.

So we're not a lot further on this. We need to determine our data lifecycle management, and I don't think it should be vastly different than what we do elsewhere.

Business Registry - never deletes any records PPR - purges historical records based on a documented lifecycle

How will BTR manage this data?

[Apt766525]

Regardless of any SI change activity, the filing history will remain intact as a record of the historical SI change filings and be accessible for review by competent authorities. BC Registry does not have a legislated requirement to remove historical TR filings. Unless the company deletes the ceased SI record which will be between 6 - 7 years, BTR will maintain the records and never deletes any records.

[mstanton1]

@Apt766525 can you look at ARC/ORCS recommendations for historical data? Can you check if there would be concern with the data being deleted from our database after a set amount of time (perhaps 7 years after being ceased)?

While you've noted there's no legislated requirement to delete, we may still be authorized to do so. The intent of seeking this information is to determine if we can review two potential lifecycles for pros and cons.

At a high level, if we keep information forever I imagine we may support RCMP or investigators whose investigations are taking place far after a crime (e.g. catches a bad actor in current criminal activity triggering review of the past, some of which may no longer be available if we purge). On the other hand, choosing to keep all data long term likely comes at a cost for the storage, could lead to extremely large search outputs down the road if we continue to show competent authorities all data, or if we don't show data that far back on search outputs, we'd need additional processes in place for accessing really old data.

[Apt766525]

@mstanton1 As per Arcs/Orcs Information Schedule there is no specific concern to be found with the data being deleted from our database after a set amount of time which in our case its 6 – 7 years. In general it mentions that records with enduring value for the future citizens and government of BC will be preserved and made accessible at the government archives.

As far as the records are being used by the authorities the records can be maintained as you had mentioned regarding the support to RCMP or investigators. Considering the large search outputs down the road if we continue to show competent authorities all data, as per the discussion with policy we may remove the ceased SI records after the set time from the search which might produce focused search outputs. From the response from policy yesterday, they would like to summarize and confirm the following: • An SI can be edited from active to ceased, and then ultimately deleted off the current TR information. Regardless of this SI change activity, the filing history will remain intact as a record of the historical SI change filings and be accessible for review by competent authorities. • BC Registry does not have a legislated requirement to remove historical TR filings.

[mstanton1]

Actions:

@steveburtch to try to find a contact for the Ministry's CIRMO general records office to determine if there is a default data lifecycle we could work with.

@mstanton1 to check with partners on whether they are storing data long term or purging as appropriate. -LOTR -Quebec -Federal Govt

@Apt766525 to locate/create a template for comparison of the two options (things like cost, value to enforcement, ARCS/ORCS etc).

[steveburtch]

@mstanton1 @Apt766525 I have reached out to CITZ Government Records Officer for advice on data retention schedule.

[Apt766525]

The reference to information being deleted from the transparency register refers only to the information in the internal company transparency register. There is no mention in the legislation of information being deleted from the RTR. The lifecycle documentation seems to be limited to long term retention.

[mstanton1]

@Apt766525 for my action item above (check with partners to see if they are storing data long term or purging) I have now summarized partner processes in the body of the ticket.

Can you add the answer to #1 into the body of the ticket as well? Julie had spoken to this in our UX/UI meeting yesterday and comments with her stance should be in the meeting notes.

[Apt766525]

Updated the ticket.

[mstanton1]

@Apt766525 @steveburtch can you work on documenting a recommendation?

• As discussed today for historical search let's include a recommendation that historical search will be made available through requests to the designated technical/administrative staff. Historical search would only be available for competent authorities who have an account, and we would need to ensure we are verifying the identity of the person receiving information as part of the account. This could be be a request that is initiated in the system or could be entirely external if we could identify a solid process to ensure the documents only went to the authorized CA. Let's discuss with design if there isn't a clear out of the system path.
• Can you also look into documenting our handling of paper files as LOTR had done above?

[Apt766525]

@mstanton1 @steveburtch Options for MVP: All options involve retaining records of ceased Significant Individuals (SIs) for 6 years after cessation, with indefinite retention of SI records. 1. Limit Historical Records Access to 6 Years:

• Records beyond 6 years will not be accessible.
  • Pros: Least costly.
  • Cons: Does not fulfill the desired feature of accessing historical records.

2. Special Requests for Historical Records:

• Competent authorities can request historical records through the designated technical/administrative staff, with identity verification.
  • Pros: Less costly than Option 3.
  • Cons: Partly manual process, potential cost implications if demand increases.

3. Searchable Historical Records Feature:

• Users can search and download historical records from the search page.
  • Pros: Self-service feature meets customer needs quickly.
  • Cons: Most costly option to implement.

  • Recommendation: Option 2: Implement the ability for competent authorities to request historical search results through the designated technical/administrative staff. Monitor demand, and if it becomes frequent, consider transitioning to Option 3.

[mstanton1]

Option 2 sounds reasonable based upon federal research suggesting that the benefit of historical records is low. Unless we have a clear need, I'd be keen to hold off any additional development work. A challenge with competent authority requests though would be verification of identity. Let's discuss at the UX / UI meeting to determine if the ability to place a request is required for the initial launch. If so we can create a UI Design ticket to brainstorm solutions.