(Ottawa) Federal officials spent about 1,600 hours last fall testing the mPersona app, developed by a private company owned by Janak Alford, a senior executive at the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC). ).
Mr. Alford found himself in the hot seat two months ago after La Presse revealed his dual employment. On the one hand, he owns a company, Symaiotics, which developed the mPersona application tested by 34 federal compensation officers to find solutions to the many problems of the Phoenix payroll system. On the other hand, he is the chief technology officer of FINTRAC, a federal agency whose main mandate is to fight money laundering.
Mr. Alford never declared his ownership of this company during the two meetings organized by senior officials of the Department of Public Services and Procurement (PSPC) last fall to assess the use of artificial intelligence in the processing of the remuneration of federal civil servants.
These undeclared links caused an uproar within this ministry when La Presse began asking questions about it, leading to a chaotic cutting of ties with the company on January 23 and pushing a deputy minister to discuss “value issues”.
Since these revelations, which led opposition parties to call for an investigation, Mr. Alford has launched a new company in the high-tech sector, Loper Technology Canada Corporation. It appears that this duplication does not raise any particular concern within the senior management of FINTRAC, a federal agency which falls under the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland.
“Mr. Alford has had conditions imposed to ensure that his personal activities outside of his role as FINTRAC’s chief technology officer remain entirely separate from his duties at the Center,” Erica Constant, spokesperson, said recently. word of FINTRAC.
According to documents recently obtained by La Presse under the Access to Information Act, PSPC Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was entitled to a briefing session on January 12 from senior officials from his department on federal employee trials of mPersona and the use of artificial intelligence to address compensation issues. This information session took place ten days before his department abruptly ended testing of the application by federal employees.
“The Minister attended a briefing and demonstration on how PSPC compensation advisors could use artificial intelligence to help reduce backlogs in the Phoenix system. He was presented with the potential time savings for each case. Senior officials from PSPC made the presentation. The presentation on the benefits of artificial intelligence was offered proactively by senior PSPC officials,” indicated Guillaume Bertrand, spokesperson for Minister Duclos, in an email to La Presse.
Mr. Bertrand specified that Minister Duclos requested more information on how artificial intelligence could be used to reduce arrears linked to the Phénix payroll system.
“The tool was used free of charge for demonstration and proof of concept purposes. It was determined that the team had gathered enough information during testing to discontinue this use. PSPC is no longer using the tool,” he said, adding that no contracts had been awarded to Symaiotics.
Mr. Bertrand emphasized that Mr. Duclos did not know, at the time of the information session, that Janak Alford was holding a dual job.
“The minister was not aware of the connection between Mr. Alford and the tool that was studied. He had never heard of the individual in question. The minister believes that it would have been appropriate for the FINTRAC employee to demonstrate greater transparency with PSPC officials,” he indicated.
“PSPC employees spent approximately 1,600 hours testing mPersona. After that, PSPC determined that it had collected enough information to end this use,” wrote Liberal MP Charles Sousa, who is parliamentary secretary to Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.
According to a source at SPAC who requested anonymity so as not to be subject to reprisals, these hours worked represent the equivalent of $100,000 in salaries for the federal government.
