Good morning, Mr. Pearson.
Thank you for the question. It's a good one.
I think the commissioner said at the beginning as well that identity theft isn't well defined. It can range from someone taking your credit card number to wholesale misappropriation of your identity and impersonation.
The existing Criminal Code offences were in the main written when we were thinking about traditional notions of property. The problem for the fit with identity theft is that personal information, in and of itself, isn't valued as property. The difficulty when trying to apply the Criminal Code provisions is that unless you can show a direct causal link to economic loss or some other serious disadvantage, it's very hard to prove that someone has committed an offence—what we think of as identify theft.
There haven't been reported cases, that we're aware of, of identity theft per se. However, many people have been charged under the existing Criminal Code provisions. There are at least 12 that are used in the main, but other people have suggested about 40 that can apply to theft or fraud situations, conspiracy to commit fraud. But again, that's when the personal information is used. There are no offences in the Criminal Code that target simply possessing and collecting personal information.
Does that answer your question?