Can You Keep a Secret?

If you are not able to view Can You Keep a Secret? CSEC recruitment video, go to the text version. For iPad and iPhone users click on the following link for our Recruitment Video

Text version:

This … is about rights and about the safety and security of our nation...
It is about providing and protecting information for the Government of Canada, and for all Canadians.

This …  is about our place in the world... And about why Canada must be protected.

Most Canadians don't think about our knowledge, our research and our expertise as potential targets for terrorists, criminals and …even for some foreign governments.

And yet… they are.

That's why one organization works quietly, competently, tirelessly, doing top secret work focused on protecting our assets.

We are the Communications Security Establishment Canada. Our job: to analyze mountains of data, searching for key pieces of the most complex and technologically advanced puzzles in order to protect and secure one thing - information.

24 hours a day, seven days a week, we are actively searching for information about the potential for harm to our information infrastructures to our military at home and overseas, to our values, and to our sovereignty.

For over sixty years, the men and women who work here have quietly and at the highest standard ensured the safety of this nation's most sensitive information.

While our work in cryptology, signals intelligence and information technology security is state-of- the-art,

Our way of working is all about some very intrinsic values.
Lawfulness...
respect...
integrity...
teamwork...
professionalism...
service and innovation -
words that stand for a way of working that has been "our way" since 1946.

Although our work is highly classified, none of this is done completely in the shadows…
Our work is subject to a strict accountability regime and review mechanism.
Our work is never directed at Canadian citizens anywhere in the world or any person in Canada.

Today, as the speed and the complexity of information accelerates at a blinding pace… as criminals and terrorists have become faceless, shifting targets, making use of the very same technologies that enrich our everyday lives;

As more and more communication, business and banking is conducted over the Internet,
where the world's geography has melted away and borders no longer exist… the Communications Security Establishment Canada strives to stay ahead of evolving technologies.

We have to. The stakes are high.

Here is what we do:

We collect foreign signals intelligence about threats to the security of our nation and our people; locating, acquiring, and decoding communications to defend Canada from foreign threats such as clandestine intelligence activities and terrorism; providing information on chemical, biological and nuclear threats, people smuggling, drug trafficking, failed and failing states and threats to our government's critical information infrastructures.

We safeguard vital communications at key government departments in order to help protect our government against cyber threats, to ensure that the private information of Canadians remains secure and that the government's most critical secrets are kept out of the hands of those who wish us harm;

We set standards for the development of encrypted and secure communications technologies.  As the IT security authority for the Government of Canada, we also evaluate and accredit new security technologies developed by industry.

And, we provide technical and operational assistance to federal security and law enforcement agencies, such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the performance of their lawful duties;

We do all of this in close partnership with key organizations abroad that form a worldwide security and intelligence community. They represent our most important foreign allies.

But more importantly, CSEC relies on an elite workforce drawn from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.

As a team, these men and women take responsibility for safeguarding Canada's security through information superiority.

Simply put, our work means: that cyber attacks are foiled...

That our intellectual capital is protected...

That our nation's government's computer systems and communications are secure and that personal information is protected from compromise...

That threats against our borders and national security are countered...

That lives are saved, both here in Canada and on the ground wherever Canadian troops are located...

And that our nation can move forward with confidence and in safety.

This is our mandate.
This is our mission.
This is why we do what we do.

We are the Communications Security Establishment Canada.

We are committed to the safety and security of Canada and Canadians.