Stealing ID more profitable than selling drugs: Privacy commissioner

By Gillian Shaw |

VANCOUVER - The international drug trade is now less lucrative than identify theft, yet cybercrime is much lower on the law-enforcement agenda and Canada lags well behind in dealing with it, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, said in Vancouver on Monday.

“This is a shocking phenomenon to think that the international drug trade is now less lucrative than the trade in personal information,” Stoddart said in a speech at a privacy and identity theft conference hosted by the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association.

Despite being a $105-billion global business, Stoddart said cybercrime doesn’t get nearly the same attention from police and law-enforcement agencies as does the drug trade.

The privacy commissioner listed a number of areas where Canada is lagging behind the United States and other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

“We have a system that, while perhaps not broken, is very definitely in need of repair,” said Stoddart.

Pointing to an Ipsos Reid study conducted for Canwest/Global that found 44 per cent of Canadians say financial institutions and businesses aren’t doing enough to protect personal information - and almost one third say the risk of ID theft has prompted them to change their spending habits - Stoddart said Canada still lacks a comprehensive strategy to battle ID theft.

Canada has failed to take the same actions other countries have, such as implementing anti-spam legislation or requiring companies to report breaches of personal information to the privacy commissioner and to victims.

There is also no restitution for victims of identify theft, even if the breach is a result of inadequate safeguards on the part of a business or organization holding that information.

© Vancouver Sun 2008

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