Canada’s border agency repeatedly failed to take steps to protect confidential informants, including one case where it may have revealed their identities, according to documents from the IJF’s Open By Default database.

A 2023 review of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) confidential informant policy identified eight cases where the agency failed to implement steps meant to protect people offering the agency information in exchange for anonymity and security.

Those include a case where the CBSA allegedly put informants at risk by “improperly disclosing documents which may have revealed their identities.”

The IJF contacted the CBSA with questions about the review but the agency said it would not be able to comment before publication time.

That review, completed by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA, was released via access-to-information legislation after the CBSA adopted a new, internal policy on the use of confidential human sources in 2022. It was one of three reviews conducted by the agency on “human source handling programs” of the CBSA, the RCMP and the Canadian military.

Before the CBSA’s new policy took effect, the NSIRA review found the CBSA struggled to follow its own internal guidelines when it came to confidential sources, who sometimes risked their personal safety to help the agency secure arrests and deportations.

The review found, for example, that CBSA policies “are insufficient to ensure that informed consent is obtained systematically, and before risks are incurred.” The review also found that steps to mitigate risks to sources “are often not present or implemented.”

The CBSA defines a confidential human source, or CHS, as a person who volunteers information to the agency in exchange for an assurance of confidentiality. NSIRA reviewed aspects of CBSA’s CHS handling activities that occurred between Jan. 1, 2018 and March 31, 2021.

If the source offers information on an ongoing basis, the agency’s policy was to officially register them, which the review said helps guarantee confidentiality and allows agents to monitor a source’s whereabouts.

But the review found the CBSA routinely failed to actually register informants.

A review of an unspecified number of randomly selected files suggested as many as 57 per cent of confidential informants were not registered.

The NSIRA further examined 16 cases where a confidential source helped agents secure an arrest, deportation or other action. In nine of those cases the source had provided information prior to registration, including one case involving “a cocaine seizure at the border and an arrest.”

“It is unacceptable to conduct an assessment of risk, which is meant to support a decision, after the engagement of risk has taken place,” the report said.

The review also found a lack of clear guidance on the use of unregistered confidential sources, and that the agency was unable to provide NSIRA with the number of sources who may be unregistered. NSIRA found the CBSA’s new policy also didn’t address that gap in risk management for sources.

Furthermore, the NSIRA review found the agency also had inconsistent practices when it came to informed consent from sources. In roughly a quarter of 35 reviewed cases, NSIRA said border agents hadn’t completed a checklist to make sure a source had consented to share information. NSIRA also found a case where they said a source was “operating under a misapprehension that CBSA would intervene in immigration matters” on their behalf, which was not true.

In some cases, NSIRA said the CBSA’s handling of confidential sources put those people in danger. It found “eight instances when measures to mitigate risk to the safety of a CHS were included in the approved risk assessment, but were not implemented.” That included a case where an informant was awarded a large lump sum payment, which the agency had warned could attract undue attention.

The NSIRA report also found a case where two confidential sources “may have been put in jeopardy” because of information disclosed by the CBSA. The review found the agency failed to inform the minister of public safety of that breach, as required by law.

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