Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee.
I think Mr. Moore has pretty much summarized the general purpose and intent of these amendments. I'll keep my comments very brief, and then I think perhaps we can be of service to the committee by simply answering any questions you may have about the amendments. I won't address the issue of the Canada Evidence Act or the Competition Act, but I understand the government will be proposing that those sections simply be defeated. I can briefly address the issue of the Canada Evidence Act, if you wish, but I really have no expertise in the Competition Act.
With regard to the Criminal Code provisions, as Mr. Moore noted, there are concerns with their over-breadth and arbitrariness in terms of the reach they would have and the difficulty that causes in terms of charter challenges. The definition of “personal information”, which is taken from the definition of “personal information” in PIPEDA and is designed to deal with information held by businesses and to require businesses to protect that information, is very broad. Basically I'll read it to you. It means any:
information about an identifiable individual, but does not include the name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.
So basically, the core of that definition is “information about an identifiable individual”. It does not necessarily mean information that identifies the individual. It could be their shopping preferences. It could be anything that is information about them. And businesses hold a very wide range of information.
The proposal is to delete the definition of “personal information” as taken from PIPEDA, but to replace it with a crafted definition of “identification information”, which basically is information that is capable of identifying information, either alone or taken with other information. That is crafted to speak to the criminal purpose that is then added to the two provisions in clause 2 that would remain, and that is to use that information for what is broadly called identity theft, but in particular it would be to use the information to commit fraud or personation.
The proposed offence that now appears at clause 2 as proposed paragraph 362(1)(f), which is the false pretences section of the Criminal Code, is about counselling another person. The amendment would delete that proposed offence, simply because it would duplicate what effect the Criminal Code provisions already have in regard to counselling. It is already an offence, pursuant to other provisions of the Criminal Code, to counsel someone to commit an offence. And there are two different provisions for what the applicable penalty is if the person then goes on to actually commit the offence, or doesn't. The penalty varies, but there is an applicable offence for counselling a person to commit an offence, whether or not they actually go on to commit the offence. So this would simply duplicate the effect of those provisions.
The two remaining offences, then, or paragraphs that create essentially distinct offences, would be obtaining personal information through a false pretense or by fraud. It is proposed to delete the requirement that it be obtained from a third party, simply because in pretexting sometimes the person about whom you wish to get the information is the target for the obtaining of the information. Sometimes the pretexter actually gets the information from the person himself. In the business context, yes, you are dealing with third parties, but in terms of identity theft, sometimes the person himself is the source of the information.
The amendment would then go on to add the criminal purpose of intent to use the information to commit an offence under clause 3, which is fraud, or section 403, which is personation. Similarly, the offence of selling or otherwise disclosing the information--the identification information obtained from any person--would have the further criminal purpose of doing so knowing that the information is intended to be used to commit the offence of fraud or personation. Of course, that offence would be committed regardless of whether the person actually goes on to commit that offence of fraud or personation. The offence would be complete if the person knew that the information was intended to be used to commit that offence.
The further offence that would be established.... In clause 3 of the bill, from section 403, which is the personation offence, the proposal would be that the clause simply be deleted from the bill. As phrased, it has no further criminal purpose, and if a further criminal purpose were added, it really wouldn't add very much to the personation section, which is already quite broad in terms of....
The purpose of personation is to gain any advantage. I could read to you from section 403, but it's already quite a broad section. Adding a further criminal purpose to the intent to obtain personal information through personation would be circular, because it would be an intent to then go on to commit fraud or personation. But it really wouldn't add much to the current, quite broad scope of the personation offence as it stands.
The Canada Evidence Act provision would prevent information obtained in this fashion from being used as evidence. And indeed, a crown counsel might well want to be able to use this information in an identity theft prosecution. The information does have a distinct evidentiary purpose in proceedings concerning the very activities involved in the pretexting done to obtain this information and the identity theft that then proceeds from it.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that's an explanation of the amendments before you. We'd be happy to answer any further questions you have.
