IRCC will enhance Spousal Sponsorship with Advanced Analytics and Automation. This implies that the immigration department will use this technology to improve the processing of all spousal and partner applications under family class immigration. Furthermore, the department has established two new tools that will help with the different parts of the sponsorship application. As a result, it will enhance the processing capacity of sponsorship applications.

Which type of applications will undergo the implementation of the above changes?

According to the recent reports by IRCC, these processing initiatives will apply to spousal and partner applications under the family class. Sponsorship applications related to spouses, common-law partners, and conjugal partners via family class immigration will undergo processing with these two tools.

IRCC to enhance Spousal Sponsorship with Advanced Analytics – What will the department do to bring these changes?

Spousal and partner sponsorship applications are classified into:

  • The Sponsorship part – When a Canadian citizen or PR holder sponsors their spouse or partner.
  • The chief applicant – Sponsored application by a Canadian spouse or partner.

IRCC will execute a new tool at every stage, which will comply with rules established by officers and those produced via machine learning relying on previous applications.

Next, for the sponsorship part of the application, the department will first access the automation tool to recognize cases that can, by default, be approved. This measure aims to decrease the processing times at this stage. On the other hand, applications not approved by default at this specific stage will be forwarded to an IRCC officer who reviews them manually.

For the principal or chief applicant part, the department will bring forth the second tool to examine an applicant’s eligibility. When a tool comes across daily applications, it will automatically judge if the principal applicant is eligible. The tool will send the file to the IRCC officer to decide on the applicant’s admissibility. If an applicant is not automatically approved, the tool will forward the application to the officer for manual review.

However, the best part is that the department knows that the tool at any given stage is not fully capable of making the final decision to approve an application. Therefore, an IRCC officer will always take the lead in giving final approvals.

Furthermore, these tools don’t have the authority to refuse or reject applications.

The impact of these tools on the processing of spousal and partner sponsorship applications

While IRCC introduced the new tools for processing spousal and partner sponsorship applications, it clearly stated its intent to execute these data-driven technologies responsibly. This implies that IRCC is aware that the new tools must align with privacy requirements and human rights protection. 

In alignment with these, the department fulfilled an Algorithmic Impact Assessment to understand the influence of these new tools on application processing. The AIA considered the influence to be moderate, and the IRCC promised to adhere to measures to eliminate possible risks. 

As of now, it appears rather early to fully assess the possible impact of these new processing initiatives. However, IRCC swears by the former implementations of technology and even artificial intelligence while processing applications. Hopefully, this might clarify things better. In 2023, Sean Fraser stated that AI usage was prevalent in the processing of temporary resident visa applications. As a result, 98 percent of applications were processed in a waiting period of about thirty days. 

Our immigration representatives at NavaImmigration can help you better understand Canadian immigration. To clarify your doubts or queries, you may write to us at [email protected].