Service Canada is responsible for investigating misuse or abuse of the Old Age Security (OAS) program including, but not limited to, identifying individuals who do not qualify to receive OAS while outside of Canada and stopping payment after a 6 month absence, as per the program’s policy. This also applies to individuals receiving the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which cannot be collected if they are outside Canada for more than 6 months. To assist in those responsibilities, Service Canada receives traveller information from the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA), which is then compared against OAS claimants to identify individuals who have failed to report or have misreported their absence from Canada.
A system is being developed to identify misuse or abuse of the OAS program by applying techniques of case load prioritization and optimization with the objective to focus on priority cases. The system will not render decisions regarding the recipient’s eligibility. The decision to investigate an identified individual and render any administrative decision will be performed by a human investigator. The proceeding investigations will be conducted thoroughly, and individuals identified will be given an opportunity to present the necessary documentation and explanation prior to the investigators producing any decisions.
The system is anticipated to use a self-organizing map and clustering model applied to data from the CBSA traveller information system, OAS pensions system, and SIN registry.
Note: The system is not yet in production, an updated Algorithmic Impact Assessment will be published prior to the system being deployed.