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On this page
- Justice Canada’s Office Entry App: Your tool for gaining access to our buildings
- Easing Workplace Restrictions
- Working remotely with Protected Information during COVID-19
- Staying Informed During Emergency Situations
- Critical and Essential Services
Justice Canada’s Office Entry App: Your tool for gaining access to our buildings
While most Justice employees are working from home and will continue to do so until further notice, some of you may need to enter the office, whether to perform critical services or to collect the equipment you need to work remotely.
In order to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone at Justice, we need to make sure we’re respecting safety protocols for building entry, based on advice and evidence from public health authorities.
As of June 4, the Office Entry App, developed in-house by our own Business Analytics Centre, replaced all existing protocols for entering Justice buildings.
This tool helps the Department ensure that building and floor occupancy levels and other safety protocols are being followed.
This digital tool is available through Microsoft Power Apps via browser, phone or tablet, and will be accessed with the same Microsoft O365 account provided to you for MS Teams.
What it does
The Office Entry App allows staff to:
- Request entry to a Justice building for a specific floor, date and time and submit them to your manager for approval. This may include multi-day bookings.
- View live info on floor occupancy levels to ensure capacity is not exceeded when requesting and approving an entry.
- Check in prior to your approved entry (including completing a health attestation) and check out after leaving.
- Request access for a visitor as part of your booking.
- Submit asset retrieval requests for picking up necessary equipment (note that only essential items can be picked up at this time).
Important notes
Previous building entry protocols are no longer in use. All building entry requests must be made through the application. No other requests will be accepted or approved.
- An updated version of the Office Entry App is now available. New features include: Multi-day bookings. You can now book multiple days within a single request. You will still need to complete the health and safety attestation for each day you enter the office.
- Adding visitors to entry requests. You can now add a visitor to your requests through the app. Visitors should be entering only for legitimate work-related purposes that cannot be done remotely. Once your request has been approved, each visitor will be emailed a copy of the COVID-19 Health & Safety Measures and a health attestation link 24 hours prior to their scheduled entry into the office. This attestation must be completed within that 24 hour period in order to enter the office. Employees sponsoring visitors are responsible for ensuring they understand and follow all COVID-19 health and safety measures.
- Check-in/out. A new mandatory check-in and check-out process has been added for all employee requests. Through the check-in process, employees entering the building are required to attest to their health 24 hours prior to entry. The check-out feature ensures that predetermined building capacity limits are being maintained.
- Confirmation of approval. Once you have checked in through the app, a proof screen will be available to you. It is not mandatory to show proof of approval while in the workplace. However, this screen may be used in case your presence in the building is ever questioned.
We will keep you updated as the app continues to evolve and improve.
Privacy Act compliance
The data gathered through this application is collected under the authority of the Financial Administration Act, and will be used only for the purposes of monitoring workplace access and supporting a safe, healthy and gradual return to the workplace. The Office Entry App is not a contact tracing app, and it does not track the geographic location of employees. The app only collects:
- the name of the employee
- the building address and floor
- the planned (or requested) time of their attendance at the office
This allows management to approve and oversee office capacity to ensure health and safety protocols are respected, including physical distancing. The app does not collect any health-related information.
More information is included in the app’s Privacy Act Statement.
Information and support
For more information and instructions on accessing and using the app through a browser, phone or tablet, see the User Guide, or contact the Business Analytics Centre.
If you don’t have a device that can access the app, please talk to your manager. You can also contact your managers with questions about building access or the Department’s plans for a phased and gradual easing of worksite restrictions.
Easing Workplace Restrictions
Easing Workplace Restrictions provides an overview of what to expect upon arrival and throughout Justice Canada buildings and work environments.
For details on the general phases that are planned for the easing of workplace restrictions, see the chart below. Your workplaces may have slightly different signage and measures in place, but the principles will be the same. Be alert and follow the protocols and measures in place that you receive from your workplace. If you have questions or concerns specific to your location, please speak with your manager.
Working in third-party premises
If you need to work or attend a meeting outside a Justice building, please read through the Department’s new tip sheet to help you prepare to work off-site.
Working remotely with Protected Information during COVID-19
When working remotely from home with Protected A or B information during this unprecedented time, employees must take reasonable care to protect sensitive government information against unauthorized disclosure, loss, theft, fire, destruction, damage or modification. By keeping a few security considerations in mind, we can all help take responsibility for protecting the Department’s information.
If there is a requirement to work remotely with Classified information (i.e. Secret and above), please contact your local security practitioner for advice and guidance.
Protected A is information that, if compromised, could cause a low degree of injury to personal or other non-national interests (i.e. date of birth, home address and telephone number, Personal Record Identifier (PRI), linguistic profiles, race, etc.).
Protected B is information that, if compromised, could cause serious injury to personal or other non-national interests (e.g. aggregation of personal information like a social insurance number and date of birth, most solicitor-client privilege, tax payer information, investigations, employees’ evaluation, etc.).
Removing information from the office
Access to Justice buildings is currently restricted. For more information, see Note on building access. Managers are encouraged to implement paperless work options for employees whenever and wherever possible. If you must remove critical information from the office:
- Ensure you have your manager’s approval prior to removing information from the workplace. For information on the approvals needed to enter a Justice building, see Update #12.
- Track information removed from the workplace. This can simply be an email to your manager of the information and assets being removed.
- Transport Protected A and B information in a single sealed envelope with no security marking and appropriately addressed. Use an approved lockable briefcase to transport large amounts of Protected A or B information.
Working remotely
- Make every reasonable effort to ensure that information displayed on a computer screen will not be exposed to the view of unauthorized personnel, including other members of the household.
- Avoid working by windows or close blinds so information cannot be viewed from the outside.
- Store Protected A or B information in a single sealed envelope or approved lockable briefcase when not in use.
- Never store Protected A or B information in a vehicle overnight; they can be temporarily stored in a secured vehicle.
- Be mindful of having work conversations while at home. Conversations must be kept at or below the Protected B level.
- Remember that Protected A and B information can only be destroyed in the workplace using an approved shredder. When you are finished using Protected A or B information, store it securely until it can be destroyed.
Recommended Risk Management
When working remotely, it is recommended that you follow these protocols, when possible, to mitigate any potential risks to department information.
Voice
- Discuss Protected A and B information within the Department and with other government entities using BBM Enterprise
- Communicate Protected A information via landline-to-landline or cell phone-to-cell phone communication
- Do not discuss Protected B information via landline or cell phone.
Video Conferencing
- MS Teams can be used to discuss Protected A information but not Protected B.
- WebEx/GotoMeeting/FaceTime, etc. are not secure and should not be used to discuss protected information.
- Zoom poses a higher risk of security issues and should not be used to discuss protected information.
IT Security
- If using a personal computer when working on Protected A or B documents, use a Justice-provided laptop or JUSaccess.
- When using a personal computer through JUSaccess, save Protected A or B documents in JUSaccess and not directly to your personal device.
- Encrypt Protected A emails being sent outside of the Government of Canada
- Always encrypt Protected B emails
Printing at home
- Only print unclassified documents from a home printer.
- If Protected A or Protected B information must be printed, please discuss and obtain approval from your manager and refer to the above points on storing and destroying Protected A or B information.
- Note that printers have both volatile memory, which is erased when you turn the printer off, and non-volatile memory (like computer hard drives) which sticks around until it is deleted.
- Before you print, refer to the printer manual on how to erase the memory of your printer. Erase the memory of your printer after each approved print job and confirmation to your manager that this has been done.
Any loss or compromise of information must be immediately reported to Security. For further information, please contact Corporate Security.
For more information about teleworking, please consult Network capacity and best practices for tips on working remotely, including access to your work email through Webmail.
Staying Informed During Emergency Situations
The Mass Notification System (MNS) and the Status of Operations Line will help to keep you informed when events affect your workplace.
Have You Registered for the MNS?
The MNS is an automated notification system that the Justice Security Team uses to keep employees informed during emergency situations or building closures, such as during extreme weather events, power outages or fire alarms. If regular business is disrupted in a Justice building and employees need to know immediately, the MNS sends alerts and other emergency information to all registered employees.
How does it work?
Employees must register for mass notifications, selecting their preferred channels of communication in order of priority. You can use your work and personal devices; and choose to receive texts, emails or phone calls. When an incident occurs, you will automatically receive a notification with emergency information.
To sign-up:
- Enter your contact information in the Professional Registry of Employees (PRE) on the “General” and “Mass Notification System” tabs. Remember to keep this information up to date.
- Register for text message alerts (SMS) by sending ERMS START to 77222 via your work and/or your personal cellphone; please wait 24 hours after registering in order for your information to upload to the system.
How Do I Know If My Building Is Open?
The Status of Operations Line is available 24/7 and allows you to check the status of your building in the event of service disruptions and/or building shutdowns.
Save the Department of Justice’s Status of Operations Line, 1 (877) JUS-COMM (1-877-587-2666), in your contacts list. Saving this number will make it easier to get information during an emergency or disruption.
More Information
For more information about the MNS, please consult the Mass Notification System site or contact the Emergency Operations Centre.
Critical and Essential Services
In the context of COVID-19, the Government of Canada has asked that employees, at all work sites, work from home whenever and wherever possible. Managers are asked to be flexible while ensuring that we continue to provide critical government operations and services to Canadians.
Managers are to consider on-site work only if the work meets the definition of critical service and working remotely to support it is not feasible.
What Are Critical Services?
A critical service is one that, if disrupted, would result in a high or very high degree of injury to the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians, or to the effective functioning of the Government of Canada. The term is generally used for services that must continue in an emergency or business continuity situation.
All departments are required to identify their own critical services and related supporting resources. For more information, please refer to the Policy on Government Security.
Here are some examples of critical services provided by Justice Canada:
- Legal Services to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Canada, the Deputy Minister of Justice, and other federal government ministers, including provision of legal advice, legislative and regulatory drafting, policy services and litigation
- Administration of the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act Program
- International mutual legal assistance requests and extradition matters
- Applications for suspension of immigration proceedings
- Habeas corpus applications in immigration or prison matters
- Injunctions
What Are Essential Services?
Under the Public Sector Labour Relations Act, an essential service describes a service, facility or activity of the Government of Canada that is or will be, at any time, necessary for the safety or security of the public or a sector of the public. This term is generally used for positions that must continue to provide service during strike activity. Essential service agreements are made with bargaining agents as part of the collective bargaining process. Employees with questions about essential services should speak with their managers or send an email to Labour Relations.
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