One of the points we made is that we need a much clearer idea of what the underlying problems and causes are for identity theft. One of the things we know is that there is a great deal of concern that the social insurance number can be used for identity theft. If we had more information about what's actually causing identity theft, then we'd have a much clearer idea of the extent to which problems with the SIN contribute to it. There have been concerns that there were more SIN numbers out there than there are live Canadians. We're told that's being fixed. But that's one of the many areas where we really need to know what the various factors are that are causing the problem. Then we can decide how we need to proceed in terms of the SIN. Do we need to restrict its use further, or in fact is it not as much of a problem as some people think?
In the online world, of course, there are alternatives to the SIN. That's what the whole secure channel is about, where randomly generated numbers are used to identify people.