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Chinook. You’ve heard the name and the rumors surrounding this AI tool helping IRCC officers refuse massive amounts of applications.
Officially the IRCC has stated that it has processed more than 1 million work permits, study permits, and visitor visa applications using this system.
According to the IRCC website, Chinook helps with “temporary resident application processing to increase efficiency and to improve client service,” with the goal of assisting in the backlog of work permit applications. It “does not utilize artificial intelligence (AI), nor advanced analytics for decision-making, and there are no built-in decision-making algorithms.”
Are these claims true, and can we believe the IRCC and the government? How can it affect your application from overseas when trying to come to Canada to study, work or visit? That’s what we will be covering today.
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Here is a quick background on what Chinook is, what it does, and when IRCC started utilizing it:
* Only in 2021 IRCC admitted to using Chinook for processing TRV’s (study permits, work permits, and visitor visas). Chinook was originally developed in 2018. It is a Microsoft Excel-based tool that reduces the amount of time spent downloading and reviewing information for IRCC officers.
* The different modules of the Excel application assist IRCC officers in file management, indicator management, and pre-and post-decision management.
* The Chinook application has multiple modules and allows IRCC officers to pull information from the GCMS for multiple applicants at the same time. The officer can have up to 1,000 different files displayed together, which would allow them to review the information more quickly and then make a decision using the built-in note generator. The tool can also record decisions and generate reasons for the decision made by the agent. This allows the IRCC officers to process a larger number of TRV applications and render decisions on each one but on a mass scale.
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IRCC claims that Chinook is not artificial intelligence and that IRCC officers make the final decision themselves – not the program. IRCC also claims that Chinook is a tool that remains optional to decision-makers and is in no way mandatory. Now consider this; The Chinook tool, which is effective because of the way it presents information in an easy-to-read manner, also impacts the evidence submitted by applicants by summarizing documents that can be hundreds of pages long into a few lines. It is impossible to understand how Chinook selects the information presented to officers and whether this decrease in the volume of presented evidence may impact whether an application is accepted or refused. It has even been reported that the reasons given for a refusal sometimes do not correspond to the submissions and evidence submitted by the applicants, resulting in discrepancies between the facts and the reasons for refusal. We are sure many overseas applicants experienced this when they received their IRCC refusal letter with its reasons outlined.
Of course, the statement by IRCC regarding this tool being ‘optional’ and not ‘mandatory’ begs the question of which government officer working in an embassy prefers to review hundreds of pages of each application one by one, for hundreds of applications per week, compared to using the Chinook tool which summarizes everything on a simple spreadsheet application and allows the officers to process them all only with a few clicks.
Keep in mind that when using the Chinook tool, notes made by officers when reviewing applications are not transmitted to GCMS and are therefore automatically deleted after the Excel file is closed at the end of each session – which creates a lot of red flags in terms of transparency and whether anyone will ever know how the officer made their decision on each file.
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It is very important to point to the fact that the arrival of Chinook largely coincides with an increase in the number of study permits that have been refused by IRCC overseas embassies. It is reported that in 2018 the refusal rate for international students was 34 percent on an aggregated total, while in 2020 this rate was as high as 53 percent. It has been reported that the Chinook tool affects students from French-speaking African countries even more than other regions - in particular, those like Cameroon, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Republic of Congo, with a refusal rate in 2020 higher than 80 per cent.
This is the key to the Chinook discussion: Supporting IRCC officer’s processing of high volume of cases and higher demand for Canadian TRVs vs. the lack of transparency and ‘shortcuts’ IRCC officers make in “Ctrl+Alt+Refused” for applicants on a mass scale. And we can see this to be true in higher volume regions such as the Indian subcontinent, China, the Middle East, and Africa.
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Keep in mind that the AI tools are being expanded by the government and going to be utilized even more; “The federal government says it is expanding its use of advanced data analytics to help federal officials triage and process backlogged visitor visa applications submitted from abroad.” This sounds like a lot of bureaucratic talk meaning we will use whatever we can in any way we can to process a massive backlog of visitor visas overseas.
“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced its move to “Advanced Analytics Triage of Overseas Temporary Resident Visa Applications” …
“The department said the expanded use of advanced data analytics is expected to help it manage and speed up the processing of the increasing number of visitor visa applications by identifying routine applications for streamlined processing, such as those from certain clients who have been previously approved to visit Canada in the past 10 years.”…“It can also create efficiencies by sorting and triaging non-routine applications to officers based on their level of complexity”….“The department said the “impact level” of the analytical models used for visitor visa applications has been classed as “moderate” by the “algorithmic impact assessment” required by a Treasury Board directive on automated decision-making. “Numerous measures are in place to mitigate possible risk,” the government said. “These measures include an extensive review process for potential discriminatory impacts, privacy and security elements built into the design of the system, and the ability of officers to overturn an eligibility determination.” The truth is that no one has a clue of what this all really means.
In addition to trying to reduce its backlog of visitor visa applications, the IRCC also said it also aims to reduce the backlogs, service standards for study permits, and work permit applications using these data analytic and AI tools.
If you really want to understand how Chinook and these types of tools are used by IRCC, check this excerpt from a Federal Court cross-examination transcript, conducted by counsel in the Ocran case with a technical expert of IRCC:
“If you indicate that you want to refuse, it recognizes first the type of application, so a study permit, a work permit, or a temporary resident visa. Then it will ask you, as I mentioned before, what are the reasons for the refusal, and it will provide you with all… I don’t know the exact number, apologies, but let’s say it is 100 reasons that are available for a study permit refusal. Then as the officer you go through, and you click I… if it was related to financial resources, I am clicking the financial-specific refusal ground, and I am clicking the… whichever ones it is. As it clicks — as the officer clicks through, a refusal note is generated dynamically in a window that is just below, and the officer will actually see the wording that will pop up, and the wording will indicate usually the start of a sentence.” Transcript from cross-examination of Ocran Affidavit
Literally what this means is that it’s a drop-down menu, pick and choose, and there are 100s of reasons for refusal which is why so many applicants receive bogus and irrelevant IRCC refusal reasons for their study permits, work permits, and visitor visas.
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One of the key foundations of procedural fairness is the right to reason for an administrative decision. Canadian tribunals and decision-makers have an obligation to explain why a particular outcome is reached and the rationale for it – this is part of Canadian law. No matter if you are not a Canadian, situated outside Canada, and a decision is made by IRCC on your application – it has to be within the framework of the law and you have the right to challenge this decision through the judicial review process. How is this procedural fairness affected using Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
A recent decision of the Federal Court, Haghshenas v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), 2023 FC 464, sheds light on how Canadian courts may approach the fairness or reasonableness of administrative decisions issued with the support of AI.
Haghshenas involved an application for judicial review of a decision by an immigration officer (the officer) at the Canadian Embassy in Turkey. The officer denied the applicant a work permit designed for entrepreneurs and self-employed foreign nationals seeking to operate a business in Canada (the work permit) because they were not satisfied that the applicant “will leave Canada by the end of the period authorized for their stay.”
In reaching this decision, the officer used Chinook, a Microsoft Excel-based tool developed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
The applicant argued that employing AI to reach an administrative decision was both procedurally unfair and substantively unreasonable. The Federal court noted that in this applicant’s case, AI did not reach the final decision regarding his work permit — the officer did. Therefore, the case was dismissed.
The court’s decision and reasoning:
“As to artificial intelligence, the Applicant submits the Decision is based on artificial intelligence generated by Microsoft in the form of “Chinook” software. However, the evidence is that the Decision was made by a Visa Officer and not by software. I agree the Decision had input assembled by artificial intelligence, but it seems to me the Court on judicial review is to look at the record and the Decision and determine its reasonableness in accordance with [the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in] Vavilov. Whether a decision is reasonable or unreasonable will determine if it is upheld or set aside, whether or not artificial intelligence was used. To hold otherwise would elevate process over substance”
Haghshenas just scratches the surface about all the issues at play with machine learning, AI and advanced data analytics tools being utilized by various government departments, such as IRCC.
You must be aware of your rights, even if you are not a Canadian and are applying from outside Canada for a study or work permit, or visitor visa. If you are from high refusal or high-volume regions, be ready to fight against this machine, called the Chinook tool.
Heron Law Offices in BC, headed by Will Tao, has created and shared Google Sheet called Operation Catch the Chinook – Module 4.5 to track reasons for refusal to try and piece together Chinook’s ‘answer key’ for refusals. As per Heron Law, all self-rep applicants and counsel are invited to populate it with refusal reasons they are seeing. ***”Per the notes, please try not to duplicate reasons and take only those reasons from GCMS notes and Rule 9 reasons NOT the standard form refusal letters.” Click here.
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