Department of Justice Guidelines on Security for Domestic Legal Agents: Protected Information and Assets

Annex A: Definitions

Assets
All tangible or intangible things of the Government of Canada including but not limited to information in all forms (written, verbal or visual) and media, networks, systems, material, real property, financial resources, employee trust, public confidence and national and international reputation.
Classified Assets
Government of Canada assets whose compromise could reasonably be expected to cause injury to the national interest.
Classified Information
The security designation applied to Government of Canada information related to the national interest (i.e., concerning the defence and maintenance of the social, political or economic stability of Canada) that may qualify for an exemption or exclusion from disclosure under the Access to Information Act or Privacy Act.  The unauthorized disclosure of Classified Information could reasonably be expected to cause injury to the national interest.  Classified information is categorized based on the gravity of injury caused by unauthorized disclosure and is marked accordingly – i.e., Confidential (simple injury), Secret (serious injury) and Top Secret (exceptionally grave injury).
Individual Security Screening
The process of conducting a security screening activity and evaluating an individual's reliability and/or loyalty to Canada in support of a decision to grant, grant with a waiver, deny, or revoke a Reliability Status, or security clearance at a specified Classified level.
Physical Security
The use of physical safeguards to prevent or delay unauthorized access to government information and assets, to detect attempted and actual unauthorized access and to activate appropriate responses.
Protected Assets
Assets whose compromise could reasonably be expected to cause injury to a non-national interest.
Protected Information
The security designation applied to Government of Canada information related to other than the national interest that may qualify for an exemption or exclusion from disclosure under the Access to Information Act or Privacy Act.  The unauthorized disclosure of Protected Information could reasonably be expected to cause injury to a non-national interest.  Protected information is categorized, based on the degree of injury, as Protected A or Protected B, and is marked accordingly. 
Protected A
Information where unauthorized disclosure could cause injury to an individual, organization or government.  Examples include:  addresses, age, race, date of birth, and unique identifiers such as social insurance number.
Protected B
Information where unauthorized disclosure could cause serious injury to an individual, organization or government.  Examples include:  medical information, information protected by solicitor-client or litigation privilege, and information received in confidence from other government departments and agencies.
Reliability Status
The minimum standard of security screening required for individuals to have unsupervised access to Protected government information, assets or work sites.  Security screening for Reliability Status appraises an individual's honesty and whether he or she can be trusted to protect the government's interests.
Security Clearance
The standard of security screening required for an individual to have access to Classified government information, assets or work sites.  Security screening for a security clearance appraises an individual's loyalty to Canada and his or her reliability as it relates to that loyalty. There are three security clearance levels:  Confidential, Secret and Top Secret.
Sensitive
Government of Canada information and assets that have been categorized as Protected or Classified.