Sure. Okay.
The brief mentions a number of specific consumer protection measures that we think are needed to empower consumers.
Our final recommendations are that all of the players in Canada, from law enforcement agencies to consumer protection agencies to financial institutions to consumer groups, work together to address the problem. We need to develop a national strategy for combatting identity theft, and I have seven recommendations.
First, as I mentioned, amend PIPEDA so as to create meaningful incentives for compliance.
Second, appoint a lead agency at the federal level responsible for gathering and reporting ID theft statistics and for coordinating efforts to combat identity theft across Canada.
Third, as I mentioned already, mandate the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada to undertake a national education campaign.
Fourth, establish a national ID theft victim assistance bureau, again with a mandate to gather statistics, analyze the problem, and make recommendations for legislative and policy reform.
Fifth, require credit-granting institutions to report on incidents of ID theft.
Sixth, provide consumers with rights that improve their ability to detect, prevent, and mitigate the effects of identity theft. Those rights should include allowing consumers access to the version of their credit report relied on by lending institutions, which right now is a problem because they are denied access to that, and allowing consumers the right to a credit freeze upon request to credit bureaus, which again is currently not permitted.
Finally, we need a thorough review of legislation governing credit bureaus, lending institutions, and police agencies, with a view to identifying other ways in which these agencies could assist in the prevention, detection, and mitigation of identity theft.
Thank you.