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Security report for canada.ca

Government of Canada · Government · Canada

Medium risk. 5 critical or high findings in Security headers and GDPR outside view.

Security score

72/100

Risk levelMedium

0–100, higher is better. How it is calculated

Canada.ca is the official Government of Canada website serving as a centralized portal for accessing government programs, services, departments, ministries, and organizations. It targets Canadian residents and citizens seeking authoritative government information and services. The website is bilingual, supporting both English and French, and is positioned as the primary and trusted source for federal government information. The business model is a government service portal, providing free access to public services and information.

Scanned

This is an earlier scan of canada.ca. View the latest report

NIS2 and GDPR posture

GDPR outside view
35/ 100 · High
Checks completed
7of 7

NIS2 Art. 21(2)

  1. (a) Risk analysis and security policies: Not visible from outside
  2. (b) Incident handling: One indicator
  3. (c) Business continuity, backups and crisis management: Not visible from outside
  4. (d) Supply chain security: Not visible from outside
  5. (e) Secure acquisition, development and maintenance, including vulnerability handling: Partly checked
  6. (f) Assessing the effectiveness of security measures: Not visible from outside
  7. (g) Cyber hygiene and security training: Not visible from outside
  8. (h) Cryptography and encryption: Partly checked
  9. (i) HR security, access control and asset management: One indicator
  10. (j) Multi-factor authentication and secured communications: Not visible from outside

This scan rated NIS2 with an earlier keyword method that is no longer shown; rescan for the per-article view. Risk management, continuity, supply chain, training, MFA, management oversight (Art. 20) and incident reporting (Art. 23) need internal evidence, and Guard cannot tell whether NIS2 applies to this organisation.

GDPR is indicative only, based on publicly visible signals: Articles 7, 12, 13 and 32 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive. Not a certification or legal assessment.

Priority findings

5 findings rated critical or high. Fix these first.

  1. Security headers

    Security headers are instructions your web server sends to every visitor’s browser. Missing ones leave visitors more exposed to attacks such as clickjacking and injected scripts.

    • High

      Missing Content-Security-Policy header

      Controls resources the browser is allowed to load

      What to do: Implement a Content-Security-Policy appropriate for your application

      • ASVS V3.4.3
      • OWASP Secure Headers: OWASP Secure Headers Project recommends Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'self'; form-action 'self'; base-uri 'self'; object-src 'none';…

  2. GDPR outside view

    These are the privacy signals visitors and data protection authorities look for under GDPR.

    • High

      No Privacy Policy found

      GDPR requires a clear and accessible privacy policy

      What to do: Add a comprehensive privacy policy page and link to it prominently

    • High

      No Cookie Policy found

      GDPR requires clear information about cookie usage

      What to do: Add a dedicated cookie policy explaining cookie usage and purposes

    • High

      No Cookie Consent Banner found

      GDPR requires explicit consent for non-essential cookies

      What to do: Implement a cookie consent banner that appears on first visit

    • High

      Third-party services without privacy policy

      Detected services: Google APIs

      What to do: Document all third-party data sharing in your privacy policy

Need hands-on remediation? Email guard@offseq.com

Keep watching canada.ca

This scan found 21 issues across 6 checks. Monitoring re-runs those checks daily, emails you when something material changes and records each fix, so you can show progress.

Daily monitoring

Recommended

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  • TLS certificates and expiry
  • DNS records
  • SPF, DKIM and DMARC
  • Security headers
  • GDPR and NIS2 posture
  • Exposed services
  • Third-party trackers
  • Security score drift

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Results by check

Each check with its score, findings and the evidence it collected.

How this score is calculated

The security score runs 0–100, higher is better. It is the plain average of the security checks that completed in this scan, each counted equally. A check that could not run is left out: it counts neither as a pass nor as a fail.

Counted in this score

SSL/TLS
90
Security headers
55
Email security
75
DNS health
75
Network security
100
GDPR outside view
35
Average
72

Not counted

  • NIS2 outside view: Re-weights evidence from the TLS, email, DNS, network and hygiene checks, so counting it would count that evidence twice. Shown on its own.
  • OffSeq Observations: An AI reading of the site, useful context but not reproducible evidence. Shown on its own.

Findings that cap the score at 49

Each of these is serious on its own, so while any is present the site cannot rate better than high risk, however good the other checks are.

  • The certificate is not trusted by browsers
  • The website is not served over HTTPS
  • A database, remote desktop, file-sharing or Telnet service is reachable from the internet
  • The page loads a script from a compromised source
  • The domain registration has expired
  • SPF authorises every server to send mail as the domain

Partial scans

When the site blocks Guard or most checks cannot run, the score covers only the checks that ran (usually DNS and email), is capped at 75 and is shown as partial, without a risk level.

Risk levels

  • Critical0–25
  • High26–49
  • Medium50–75
  • Low76–100

Technical appendix

Business context, site observations and technical notes gathered during the scan, and the standards behind each reference.

Business context

Business profile

The website holds a strong market position as the official federal government portal, leveraging the .gc.ca domain and government branding to establish trust and authority. It operates on a large enterprise scale, serving a broad audience across Canada. The site uses Adobe Experience Manager as its CMS and integrates Adobe marketing and analytics tools, indicating a mature digital infrastructure. The absence of direct contact information on the main page suggests a focus on self-service and information dissemination rather than direct customer support. The domain's WHOIS privacy is consistent with government domain management practices, ensuring protection against abuse.

Security posture

The security posture is solid with HTTPS usage assumed and no exposed sensitive data detected in the HTML content. The site employs domain allowlists and blocklists in its scripts to control tracking and analytics. However, explicit security headers were not visible in the provided content, and no published security or incident response policies were found. The use of Adobe's enterprise-grade analytics and tag management tools suggests a controlled and monitored environment. Recommendations include adding explicit security headers and publishing clear security and privacy policies to enhance transparency and compliance.

Recommendations

  1. Implement and publish explicit security headers such as Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options.
  2. Publish comprehensive privacy and cookie policies with clear consent mechanisms to improve privacy compliance.
  3. Provide visible contact information for security incident reporting and data protection officer details.
  4. Regularly audit third-party scripts and analytics tools to ensure no vulnerable libraries are in use.
  5. Enhance SEO optimization by adding Open Graph tags and structured data for better search engine visibility.
Site observations

Automated reading of the public site. Ratings are indicative.

Business

Company
Government of Canada
Description
The Government of Canada website is a single point of access to all programs, services, departments, ministries and organizations of the Government of Canada.
Key services
Access to government programs, Information on departments and ministries, Government services and resources
Content quality
good
Branding
consistent

Technology

Stack
jQuery 2.1.1, Adobe DTM (Dynamic Tag Manager), Adobe AppMeasurement, Web Experience Toolkit (WET), JavaScript, CSS
Frameworks
Web Experience Toolkit (WET)
Performance
moderate
Mobile
good
Accessibility
good
SEO
basic

Security

Observed score
80/100
Good practices seen
  • No exposed PII in HTML content
  • Use of HTTPS assumed (URL is https://www.canada.ca/)
  • Domain allowlist and blocklist implemented in scripts

Analytics and tracking

Services
Adobe Analytics (AppMeasurement)
Tracking level
moderate
Privacy practices
basic

Advertising

Tracking pixels
Adobe DTM, Adobe AppMeasurement
Marketing tools
Adobe Launch, Adobe Target
Transparency
basic

Site quality

Design
good
User experience
good
Content relevance
good
Navigation
good
Professionalism
excellent
Trustworthiness
high

Key observations

  1. Website is official Government of Canada portal with bilingual support (English and French).
  2. No direct contact emails or phone numbers found on the main page HTML.
  3. Terms and conditions page is linked and accessible.
  4. No explicit privacy or cookie policy links found in the main HTML content provided.
  5. Use of Adobe Experience Manager CMS and Adobe marketing/analytics tools.
  6. Domain WHOIS data is not publicly available, consistent with CIRA privacy policies.
  7. No signs of WAF blocking or security challenge pages.
  8. No forms detected on the main page HTML content.
  9. No social media links found in the provided HTML content.
  10. Content is safe and appropriate for general audiences.
Technical notes

Notes

The website uses Adobe Experience Manager CMS and integrates Adobe Dynamic Tag Manager and AppMeasurement for analytics and marketing. It loads jQuery 2.1.1 and uses the Web Experience Toolkit (WET) framework for accessibility and responsive design. Hosting appears to be managed by Canadian government infrastructure with Akamai CDN involvement. Performance is moderate with good mobile optimization and accessibility features. SEO optimization is basic, with meta tags present but no Open Graph or JSON-LD structured data detected. The site has a consistent and professional design with bilingual support.
Standards and sources

Reference chips under each finding point to the standard, regulation or specification the finding relates to. They are taken from the official datasets below and mapped conservatively: a finding with no defensible link shows none. NIS2 and GDPR references mark where a finding is relevant evidence, not a compliance verdict. Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2690 binds digital infrastructure and digital service providers; for other entities it is the most detailed public reading of the Article 21 measures. WCAG, EN 301 549, European Accessibility Act and Web Accessibility Directive references name the requirement an automated accessibility rule relates to; they are not a conformance verdict.

Retrieved 2026-10-25

Earlier scans of this domain

  1. 47/100High30 findingsView report
  2. 54/100Medium6 findings · partial scanView report
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