Canadian Payroll Reporter

MARCH 2014 6 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2014 Employers and SINs: Service Canada tips Service Canada provides the following list of reminders for employers when they request, collect, use and store social insurance numbers: BEST PRACTICES Collect the Social Insurance Number (SIN) of new employees within three days of their start of employment. Record the employee's SIN. If in doubt whether an employee's SIN is valid, contact Service Canada's Social Insurance Registration Office (1-800-206-7218, select option "3") to verify the number. Be sure your new employee's orientation training includes the importance of privacy of personal information and the SIN. If a new employee's SIN begins with a nine, ensure the work permit issued by Citizenship and Immigration Canada is valid and all terms and conditions of the work permit are being followed. Shred all paper records and fully erase any electronic records containing employee personal information you are no longer legally required to keep. Allow employees to access and/or challenge any personal information kept in their personnel record. Keep your record of employees' personal information accurate, complete and up- to-date. Keep sensitive information in a secure area or on an encrypted computer system. Only allow access to individuals who are authorized. Protect your electronic information with confidential passwords that are at least seven characters in length. Do not spell anything or follow logical patterns. Use a combination of upper- and lower-case characters, numbers, and symbols (for example: E.E0n2$). THINGS TO AVOID Never ask for the SIN on a job application or during an interview. Do not use the SIN as an employee identification number. Never employ someone who does not have a valid SIN. Never give an employee's SIN to anyone unless you know the person is legally entitled to that information (for example, for income tax or government benefit purposes). Never hire anyone with an expired immigration document. Don't allow SIN fraud to go unreported. If you suspect a SIN is being used fraudu- lently, contact Service Canada at 1-800-206-7218 and select option "3" (or (506) 548-7961 if calling from outside Canada). Don't leave documents containing employees' personal information, especially their SIN, in the open. Don't keep any personal information of an employee or customer you no longer need. Don't allow employee work stations and computers to be left unattended since unau- thorized individuals could obtain sensitive personal information. Don't share your password with anyone. If your business requires you to share ac- cess to sensitive information with others, be sure to change your password regu- larly and restrict access to the system. Source: Service Canada`s Social Insurance Number Code of Practice, Annex 6. Employers still need SIN to correctly identify employees before hiring them. If employers have any con- cerns about the validity of a SIN or think it is being misused, Sinclair advises they contact Service Canada. SINs beginning with 9 One situation in which it is essential that employers see other documentation and not just rely on the SIN card is when it comes to hiring individuals whose SIN begins with the number nine. Individuals who are not Canadian cit- izens or permanent residents, but who are temporary foreign workers, receive such SINs. They have an expiry date that corresponds to the period they are allowed to work in Canada. Employers must ask to see the individual's existing immigration document that allows them to be employed here (such as a work or study permit) and verify it has not ex- pired. If it has expired, the employer needs to have the individual contact Citizen- ship and Immigration Canada to get a new permit before hiring them. The em- ployer must also advise the individual to apply to Service Canada after they receive their new work permit to have their SIN record changed to include a new expiry date. What will not change with the phas- ing out of plastic cards is the require- ment that employers obtain and record a SIN from each employee within three days of beginning work. Individuals who do not have a SIN, but who are legally allowed to work in Canada, will still have to apply for one within three days of becoming employed. Employers will continue to have a legal obligation to tell employees to go to a Service Canada of- fice with original proof-of-identity docu- ments to apply for a SIN. Once an indi- vidual receives the SIN, she has three days to give the number to the employer. If an employer is not able to obtain a SIN because an employee does not have one or refuses to provide it, the employer should contact Service Canada within six days of the individual begin- ning work. As has been the requirement in the past, an employer must be able to show it made a reasonable effort to get the number. This could include keeping copies of all requests sent to the employ- ee asking for the SIN. Employers who do not make a reasonable effort could be fined, as could employees who do not provide the number. Whether employees have SIN cards or letters, ESDC will continue to require that employers keep employees' social insurance numbers confidential by stor- ing them in a secure location, using en- crypted software to protect them and en- suring that only authorized employees have access to them. Continued from page 1

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