Creating Travel Profiles for Public Servants

The federal government has completely reorganized its method of arranging employees’ travel. It created a Government Travel Modernization Office which subsequently awarded a contract to Accenture to deliver all government travel services. Accenture then subcontracted credit cards and travel services to American Express.

Government employees must now make all travel arrangements through Travel AcXess Voyage. But they must first complete a Traveller Profile in order to obtain the required Travel Identification Number before making any travel arrangements. The profile is sent to the credit card company, which then issues the number.

The information required included employees’ group and subgroup, level, travellers’ home telephone numbers and home addresses, emergency contact names, and dates of birth. The investigator reviewed the form and met PWGSC staff to determine why employees had to provide each of the details. The investigator also reviewed a PWGSC document explaining why the information was required. Eventually, the department agreed to the investigator’s request to remove the date of birth and make optional the requests for emergency contacts and home telephone numbers.

The complainant reviewed the revised Traveller Profile form and was pleased with the deletion of the date of birth, and the now-optional requests for other details. He was also happy with the department’s explanation of how the information is safeguarded and agreed that the case could be considered settled during the investigation.