Statistics Canada collects and provides statistical information on the characteristics and behaviour of Canadian households, businesses, institutions and governments for research, policy development, program administration, decision‑making and general informational purposes. This is done under the authority of the Statistics Act which prohibits the disclosure of identifiable information to anyone without the consent or knowledge f the individual person, business or organization concerned.

The statistical information banks maintained by Statistics Canada contain some personal information that has been obtained from a variety of sources. Information is collected directly from individuals through the censuses of population and agriculture, and from sample surveys such as surveys on income and expenditure, the labour force and special surveys. It is also collected through certain formal agreements the Agency has entered into with large institutions and various levels of Canadian governments. These arrangements give Statistics Canada access to administrative records for the purpose of extracting data on the client populations of the institutions of health, education and justice and on the activities of the population as it comes in contact with the state (e.g., the registration of births, deaths and marriages).

One of the most important of these agreements is with the Canada Revenue Agency to access taxation returns for statistical purposes, thus allowing the use of an administrative file of the federal government containing a wealth of information on the socio‑economic fabric of the Canadian population. The access to tax records has allowed Statistics Canada to exempt many respondents, particularly small businesses, from filing several questionnaires.

Information banks maintained by Statistics Canada are largely automated. Since records in these banks are meant to be used for statistical purposes and not for administrative purposes, they are rarely organized by name. In fact, few databanks contain names. Some banks are organized by a unique identifier, be it a number assigned by Statistics Canada, a number assigned by the administrative source, such as a registration number or the social insurance number. Records in other banks are classified geographically, or by the name of the company. It should be noted that many of the statistical databanks contain only a sample of the population. To locate a statistical record, Statistics Canada will require, in most cases, not only an identifier, but additional information such as the time period in which an individual has responded to a survey, or his/her street address, or his/her industry sector.