Methodology & Terminology

What it is: An evidence-first index of publicly available AI governance artifacts produced by Canadian municipalities and related public bodies — policies, directives, council reports, procurement guidance, and related materials.

What it isn't: A legal opinion, a compliance audit, or an endorsement. We don't grade quality; we record whether governance evidence exists, what kind it is, and where to read it.

Every municipality is assigned one of four statuses:

To keep the registry rigorous, the following items, on their own, are not enough to classify a municipality as having an AI policy:

• A general privacy policy with no AI-specific language.
• A news article saying AI is being explored.
• A vendor announcement or press release.
• A one-off pilot with no published governance artifact.
• A council discussion with no adopted direction or motion.

A municipality marked "Has policy" is not necessarily being identified as having a strong, complete, legally sufficient, or best-practice policy. The status only means a public AI governance artifact was found.

Got AI Policy does not grade quality, completeness, or enforcement. Side-by-side comparison (/compare) and review (/policy-review) tools help users evaluate the substance themselves.

Every "Has policy" or "In progress" entry must point to an official artifact — a document hosted on the municipality's own domain, an agenda or council minutes package, or another primary public source. Secondary coverage (news articles, association write-ups) can support context but is never the sole source for a status.

Human-verified entries are gated: the link, status, and excerpt have all been checked against the source document by a person.

For each municipality we look across:

• The municipal website (policy libraries, council pages, IT/digital pages)
• Council and committee agendas and minutes
• Procurement portals and RFP listings
• Open-data portals and transparency disclosures
• Provincial and federal guidance referenced by the municipality

We use a consistent set of search terms — including French and English variants — so coverage is comparable across municipalities regardless of size.

Human-verified entries are periodically rechecked. High-interest or submitted entries may be reviewed sooner. The tracker should not be treated as real-time legal or compliance monitoring.

Municipalities may request updates, corrections, or official profile confirmation using the submission form. Municipal staff, residents, journalists, and researchers may all submit corrections. Submissions are reviewed against official public sources before a status is changed.

Submit proof or a correction

• A link to a newly adopted policy moves an entry to Has policy (published).
• A council report, motion, or draft framework moves an entry to In progress.
• A corrected or updated portal URL replaces a stale link and is recorded in the entry's history.
• New evidence that an existing artifact has been rescinded or superseded triggers a re-review.

If you have a source we missed, submit proof of policy. We add and credit verified submissions.

For each entry we track:

• Status changes (e.g. "No policy found" → "Has policy (published)")
• Link changes (updated portal URLs)
• Verification updates (Human-verified)

AI tools may assist with:

• Summarizing long public documents
• Extracting candidate excerpts for review
• Translation support for bilingual materials

Final status assignment, excerpt selection, and link inclusion are reviewed by a human, and the official artifact remains the source of truth.

See also: How the platform itself uses AI — models, data inputs, oversight, and limits.