Security

Security requires a partnership between two parties—in this case, you and the CRA.

Security tips

To help ensure that your NETFILE income tax information remains confidential, remember the following:

• Keep your access code a secret! The NETFILE transmission service can only be accessed with your access code.
• If you leave your computer on after completing activities in an encrypted area of the Web site, clear the cache, close and re-open your browser to eliminate copies of Web pages that may have been stored on your computer's hard drive.
• Never send confidential information—such as your social insurance number (SIN) or access code—via email. Our email does not have secure transmission capabilities.

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The CRA

At the CRA, we're responsible for providing NETFILE access only to clients who give us their SIN, date of birth, and access code. We'll provide security at our Web site and guarantee that your personal and financial information is securely stored in our computers.

We're also responsible for ensuring that your personal and financial information is transmitted in an encrypted format between your computer and our Web servers. This ensures that computer hackers and other Internet users can't alter or view data being transmitted between you and us.

We use sophisticated security techniques to protect this Web site. State-of-the-art encryption technology and security procedures protect your personal information at all times.

Note
While every possible effort has been made to ensure the safety and integrity of transactions at our Web site, the Internet exists as a public network and therefore is outside of our control.

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Your part

You'll need to give us three pieces of identification to access our NETFILE transmission service. These three pieces of identification create your electronic signature. Make sure that you keep each piece of your identification confidential so that your electronic signature can't be used by others.

You have to use approved security protocols to access our Web site. Although some Web sites will allow you access with 40-bit encryption, we limit access to browsers supporting 128-bit secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption. For more information, see the Your browser Web page.

After you complete a secure transaction, you should clear your browser cache or shut down and restart your browser. Information stored in the browser cache isn't encrypted, so clearing it helps to ensure that your information can't be compromised by others.

To ensure your tax information is protected, we suggest you remove your tax--related files from your hard drive and store them on diskette or CD. Files left on a hard drive are vulnerable to hackers.

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What does 128-bit SSL encryption really mean?

SSL encryption enhances the privacy of the information passing between your browser and our Web servers. SSL protocol provides a safe passage for the transmission of data and authentication processes by encrypting the information. Data can't be compromised when SSL is in use. This is the most secure form of encryption commonly available in North America.

In simple terms, your income tax return information is broken down into small separate packages of information called packets, and SSL encrypts each packet. These encrypted packets are sent into the Internet separately, like pieces of a puzzle, each individually addressed. Once they've all reached the safety of our secure Web server, they're reassembled and decrypted.

This is a typical requirement for Web-based services—such as online banking or shopping—where securing personal information is a priority. When you access our NETFILE transmission page, our server will verify your browser's encryption capability and verify your session cookie is set (no other information will be accessed).

Confidentiality

We're taking precautions to ensure the confidentiality of the data transmitted using the NETFILE service. Using 128-bit SSL encryption protects information by verifying the identity of the parties on both ends of the Internet connection before confidential information is exchanged. Your electronic signature is identified when you log on to the transmission Web page. Throughout the session, extensive measures maintain security.

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General computer security

Anti-virus software

Anti-virus software scans your computer and email messages for viruses. You have to regularly update your anti-virus software to be able to detect new viruses. Your anti-virus software helps protect the data on your computer software and your operating system.

Email

Although email is common and widely used today, it is not secure. You should never send us confidential information by unsecured email, as the unsecured email can be intercepted and the name of the originator can be changed. We do not trust personal information received through unsecured email.

Firewalls

A firewall acts as a barrier between internal and external computers in a network, controlling the flow of information between the two. When a computer outside the firewall tries to communicate with a computer inside, it must first communicate with the firewall, which drops, allows or denies requests before it passes them to the destination computer. This process protects the destination computer from unauthorized access.