Canada’s Immigration Tribunal Bans AI-Authored Personal Evidence
Refugee claimants and appellants can no longer lean on artificial intelligence to draft or substantially rewrite personal testimony. The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) rolled out strict new restrictions that took effect on September 7, 2026, targeting the use of generative tech across all four divisions of the tribunal.
If you are navigating a tribunal proceeding, a self-represented appellant, or legal counsel representing clients before the IRB, this shift changes how you prepare case files. The tribunal draws a hard line against using AI to generate the core of a person’s lived experience. That means Basis of Claim narratives, affidavits, witness statements, and visual evidence like photographs, videos, and screenshots cannot be put together or materially altered by AI systems.
Crucially, this is an IRB tribunal rule, not a sweeping, across-the-board ban from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Routine applications handled by IRCC, such as Express Entry profiles, study permits, work permits, visitor visas, citizenship applications, and standard permanent residence filings, are not subject to this specific tribunal restriction.
The restriction specifically bars feeding your personal history into an AI tool and asking it to polish, expand, or rewrite the account into formal legal prose. Your narrative must stay anchored to your own direct knowledge and experience.
That does not mean you have to strip every digital tool from your desk. Basic assistive functions like spellchecking, standard grammar correction, and formatting help are still permitted, provided they do not generate new evidence or shift the meaning and wording of your statements.
When AI is used for other allowable materials submitted during a proceeding, the rules demand total transparency. You must explicitly declare that AI was utilized, name the specific person who verified the generated output (including any case law or legal authorities cited), and ensure the final product is completely accurate and verifiable.
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