Guidelines to the Indigenous Identity and Racial Identity Data Standards

These guidelines provide information to support the implementation of the Indigenous Identity Data Standard and the Racial Identity Data Standard.

Table of contents

Introduction

• About the Guidelines to the Indigenous Identity and Racial Identity Data Standards
  • Why do we have these guidelines?
  • Who are these guidelines for?
  • Who should I contact for help on these guidelines?
  • What if there is a discrepancy between the standards and these guidelines?
  • Distinctions-based
  • Acknowledgments
  • Guidelines as a living document

Section 1

• Introduction to the Identity Data Standards
  • What is the purpose of the Anti-Racism Data Act?
  • Introducing the Indigenous Identity and Racial Identity Data Standards
  • Why data standards matter
  • When to use the standards
  • Indigenous Identity Data Standard
  • Racial Identity Data Standard
  • Why are there two standards and how do they work together?
  • What mechanisms are available to keep ministries accountable for following the data standards?

Section 2

• Best practices for working with Indigenous and racial identity data
  • Core principles and definitions for the Anti-Racism Data Act
  • Indigenous data sovereignty and data disclosure
  • Community harm in data practices
• Data collection: Cultural safety and preventing community harm
  • Examples of data collection
  • Voluntary collection
  • Accessible data collection
  • Purpose-driven collection
  • Staff training and continuous learning to support collection
  • Community involvement and collaboration in collection
  • Other best practices for communication and collaboration with community
  • Feedback and accountability in data collection
  • Practise trauma-informed data collection
• Data use: Cultural safety and preventing community harm
  • Cultural safety in data use
  • Mitigating community harm in data use
  • Preventing community harm in reporting on data

Section 3

• Collecting, protecting and managing identity data
  • How to collect identity data securely and with purpose
  • How to use identity data securely and with purpose
    • Planning your data collection and use
    • What collection and use notice are you required to provide?
    • ​How can you protect personal privacy and ensure data security?
  • Ensuring data quality
  • What do you need to consider when disclosing data?
  • Additional policy considerations

Section 4

• Using identity variables and values
  • Asking the identity questions
  • Data entry and coding
  • Order of data collection
  • Handling changing responses over time
• Indigenous Identity Data Standard variables and values
  • Mandatory variable: Indigenous identity
  • Optional variable: First Nations status
  • Optional variable: On-reserve or Treaty Lands
• Racial Identity Data Standard variables and values
  • Mandatory variable: Race
  • Optional variable: Ethnicity
  • Optional variable: Religion or spirituality
  • Optional variable: Visible markers of religion or spirituality
  • Optional variable: Arrival year
  • Optional variable: English language proficiency
  • Optional variable: Service language​

Definitions

• Data standards and guidelines definitions

Appendices

• Appendix 1: Concordance tables
  • Indigenous Identity Data Standard concordance tables
    • Indigenous identity data values
    • First Nations status data values
    • On-reserve or Treaty Lands data values
  • Racial identity data standard concordance tables
    • Race data values
    • Ethnicity data values
    • Religion data values
    • Religious or spiritual visible marker data values
    • Arrival year data values
    • English language proficiency data values
    • Service language data values
• Appendix 2: Recoding and grouping of English language proficiency responses