Government urged to take lead against identity theft

By Carly Weeks, CanWest News Service

OTTAWA -- Canada's privacy commissioner is warning that "the negligence of businesses and even government" is adding to the growing problem of identity theft that is threatening an increasing number of Canadians every year.

"This is a huge problem," Jennifer Stoddart told a parliamentary committee Tuesday, adding the federal government must take strong leadership to combat the problem.

"This is an underground, possibly organized crime industry, and it's helped by the negligence of businesses, even governments, ourselves in handling our personal information."

So far, the federal government has failed to take adequate steps to address the problems associated with identity theft, despite the fact thousands of Canadians fall victim every year.

"This is an urgent problem," Stoddart said. "We see a lamentable slowness in responding to it."

Stoddart delivered the strong message to the House of Commons privacy and ethics committee, which has just begun to study the issue of identity theft. Despite the rapid growth of the problem and related fraud, which costs the Canadian economy millions of dollars a year, the government hasn't treated the issue with enough importance, she said.

"I think we need clear leadership," she told the committee. "This problem requires not only a global approach. It requires strong, centralized, co-ordinated leadership to try and be effective in terms of combatting ID theft."

The government should bring together provinces, police forces, the industry and other stakeholders to develop a multi-pronged approach in order to fight the growing incidence of identity theft, Stoddart said.

"Personally, I think we have to look at a range of measures. I don't think it's just an issue of the Criminal Code."

Liberal MP Glen Pearson said while it's clear identity theft is a problem, it's going to be difficult to take decisive action because there are so many outstanding questions about identity theft in Canada.

"We don't want to have the kind of approach that's going to be too heavy-handed because we don't understand all of the problem," he said.

The privacy commissioner's office said that's part of the problem. Without a dedicated task force of federal and provincial governments assigned to address identity theft, it's nearly impossible to accurately assess the extent of the problems in Canada and figure out how best to confront the issues.