Person Relations Data Standard

Intended Audience and Contact Information

Contact	Chief Data Officer, Office of the CIO
UDM Domain	Person
Intended Audience	Internal UBC

Purpose

This standard aims to achieve consistency around data collected for a person’s relations and the accepted values for collection and storage.

Terms and definitions are adopted from Statistics Canada, dictionary definitions and various government policies.

Standard

Person Relations Standard

A person’s relations will be collected using gender-neutral terms so that the standard will be inclusive of all people regardless of gender. A person may have the following relations:

Relation	Definition
Parent	An individual that has given birth, adopted or is legally recognized as a parent of the person.
Legal guardian	An individual who, by a legally binding document, regularly cared for, brought up, and/or made decisions for the person's wellbeing and livelihood as a minor, or who currently does so because the person is incapacitated due to mental or physical illness.
Child	The person's born, adopted or fostered dependent.
Sibling	An individual who shares parent(s) with the person.
Spouse	The person's partner by marriage.
Common-law partner	The person's partner by cohabitation, or any other formal union as recognized by law.
Grandparent	A parent of the person's parent.
Caregiver	An individual that is formally granted custody and control of the person or cares for them in a parent-like relationship.
Grandchild	A child of the person''s child.
Stepparent	A spouse or common-law partner of the person's parent who lived with the person's parent and the person during the person's life.
Stepchild	The child of the person's spouse or common-law partner from a previous relationship.
Stepsibling	The child of the person's stepparent.
Half-sibling	A sibling with whom the person only shares one parent.
Cousin	Someone who shares at least one grandparent with the person, but none of the parents.
Parent's sibling	The person's parent's sibling.
In-law	Family members that the person is related to through their spouse, common-law partner, or sibling, such as: the sibling or parent of the person's spouse or partner; a spouse or partner of the person's child's; a spouse of a person's sibling. etc .
Friend	Someone attached to the person by affection, esteem or companionship.

Person Dependents

A dependent* is someone who resides with the person and who is:

the spouse or common-law partner of the other person, or
indicates a parental role for the person's dependent child, and the child is:
- unmarried or not in a common-law arrangement, and
- dependent on the person for the necessities of life, or
- financially dependent on the person because of a mental or physical condition
is a relative to whom the person provides primary financial support.

*Person Dependents above are broadly defined, however, will vary within applicable employment or collective agreements, and through specific definitions for the purposes of benefits eligibility as outlined by benefit plans administered at UBC.

Guideline for Data Collection

Person relation information must only be collected when it relates directly to and is necessary for a program or activity of UBC, and only from the individual, rather than from a third party.

As Person relation can shift over time; therefore, there should be easy and clearly-communicated mechanisms for a person to update their Person relation attributes.

Compliance

This standard must be complied with through every stage of the data lifecycle with the exception of dispensations listed on the Dispensation section.

All applications must collect person relations and family composition as recommended in this standard.
Enterprise Data Integration must adopt this standard.

Dispensation

None.