Question Period Note: Online Citizenship Testing

Implementation and status update on online citizenship tests.

• IRCC is contributing to preventing the spread of COVID-19 by moving many of its in-person citizenship services, including testing and ceremonies, to an online format.

• On November 26, 2020, IRCC announced the launch of the online citizenship knowledge test. As of April 29, 2021, IRCC had invited more than 65,800 citizenship applicants to take an online citizenship knowledge test, and more than 43,600 had completed their test.

• IRCC is now able to invite approximately 5,000 clients per week to complete the online citizenship test, which is in line with pre-COVID testing rates.

• An important aspect of holding online tests is the verification of applicants’ identities, which is important to the integrity of the program, especially in an online environment.

• All citizenship applicants who are 18 to 54 years of age are required to successfully complete a citizenship knowledge test in order to demonstrate that they meet the knowledge requirements for a grant of citizenship.

• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all in-person citizenship tests were cancelled effective March 2020. At the time, there were approximately 87,000 test-ready applications in the inventory and applicants were contacting the Client Support Centre to voice their frustration with delays in the processing of their applications.

• The Citizenship Program worked with a third-party provider to expedite the development of a minimum viable product for an online knowledge test solution to help with COVID-19 resumption efforts.

• On November 26, 2020, IRCC announced the launch of the online knowledge test. As of April 29, 2021, IRCC had invited more than 65,800 citizenship applicants to take an online citizenship knowledge test, and more than 43,600 had completed their test.

• We are now able to invite approximately 5,000 clients per week to take their online knowledge test, which aligns with pre-COVID testing rates and allows the department to increase the inventory of ceremony-ready clients.

• IRCC will not be stopping in-person testing completely. Although most tests will be offered online, applicants who can’t or don’t wish to take the test online will be given the opportunity to take the test in person, when in-person testing resumes.

• Each client will be asked to agree to the privacy notice before writing the exam. Personal information will be used, maintained and stored in accordance with our existing privacy legislation. IRCC has completed a Privacy Compliance Evaluation. This is in line with the new Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) guidelines for privacy impact assessments (PIAs) for projects responding to pandemic measures. IRCC will be completing a full PIA before June 2021, as required by TBS.

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