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Terms of use

The following terms apply to the use of GC Forms, a product operated by the Canadian Digital Service (CDS) at Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). GC Forms is available for use by Canadian federal departments and agencies to create online forms.

Accept all conditions and risks

You must be comfortable with our privacy notice and service-level agreement, including the support process, application uptime, security measures, etc.

We may:

  • Suspend your account if you misuse GC Forms. Misuse includes not following these terms of use or your department or agency’s policies and procedures for using software products.
  • Share general use case information about GC Forms in public forums, such as blog posts, presentations, and conferences.
  • Ask for service standard metrics to assess form submission quality, impacts on workflow, and rates of program admission related to introducing GC Forms into your program or service.

Protect and process personal and sensitive information

You are responsible for:

  • Having authority to collect personal information. If you are unsure about your authorities, contact your department or agency’s Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) coordinator.
  • Protecting the personal and sensitive information submitted in form responses. GC Forms holds and stores the information temporarily but your department or agency has ultimate custody and control.
  • Drafting and publishing a privacy notice for your form following the Directive on Privacy Practices Section 4.2.10. We also include Terms and conditions in the footer of every form to meet policy requirements related to hosting the form on your behalf. We share information about our retention and disposition of form responses in our databases as well as features to protect the security of Government of Canada websites.
  • Identifying the confidentiality of the information collected through your forms. GC Forms supports the collection of data classified as up to PROTECTED B. Learn more about identifying confidentiality through the Standard on Security Categorization.
  • Complying with the Privacy Act and Access to Information Act related to the personal and sensitive information in responses submitted through your forms, if there is a request, incident, or data breach.

Responses delivered by email (up to PROTECTED A)

You are responsible for:

  • Managing any non-legitimate documents uploaded and submitted by end users (e.g. inappropriate or disturbing content).
  • Implementing content scanning measures for submissions with file upload to reduce the possibility of viruses or malicious software (e.g. virus scanning done by departmental email services).
  • Addressing service or operational impacts due to end users uploading documents to submissions for the purpose of spamming.
  • Accepting GC Notify's terms of use.

Responses retrieved from the database (up to PROTECTED B)

You are responsible for:

  • Adhering to your departmental guidance for acceptable device and network use.
  • Saving a copy and confirming receipt of your form responses within 45 days of receiving a submission.
  • Reporting any problems with saved form responses.
  • Handling, opening, and saving form responses in accordance with your retention and disposition schedule.

Practice continuous security

  • Use a valid government email to create your account and for two-factor authentication (2FA).
  • Do not share your password with anyone or store it where others could find it. If someone else needs access to a form, contact us.
  • Report any security breach or vulnerability using the steps outlined in our Security notice.

Publish in both Official Languages

You are responsible for the completeness and accuracy of translations.

Provide multiple channels for service and program delivery

GC Forms allows you to create and publish digital forms. You must ensure that there are alternative paths to program and service delivery for accessibility.

Contribute to a trustworthy and consistent digital experience

You are responsible for:

  • Integrating your form into your department or agency’s information architecture. This means embedding the URL to your form so that people or organizations can find it.
  • Maintaining working links to your form. THis includes replacing all instances of the form URL when it is modified, or removing the URL when the form is closed or deleted.
  • Addressing any inquiring or requests from users experiencing issues with your form, that are not a result of a system-wide issue.
  • Drafting form content based on the Canada.ca Content Style guide.
  • Following the Design Standard for the Federal Identity Program. By default your form will appear with:
    • the Government of Canada signature in the top left corner of the header.
    • the Canada wordmark in the bottom right corner of the footer.

You may replace the Government of Canada signature with your department or agency’s signature. If you are unsure about your department or agency’s signature, contact your Federal Identity Program coordinator.

For questions related to these terms of use, contact us.

Last update: June 25, 2024