Information & Ethics committee  It's something that is being picked up. I have a proclamation done on March 20. It happens to be my birthday—it also happens to be the first day of spring, in many cases—so it's easy for me to remember. It's much like what we do with the fire alarms and changing the smoke detector.

Information & Ethics committee  I hope so.

Information & Ethics committee  Is the question for Janet?

Information & Ethics committee  All right. If I may start, we founded the Social Media Working Group with the Toronto Police Service. It involves the Insurance Bureau of Canada, all the banks, Bell Canada, a lot of groups, and the school boards. Twice a year we do a fraud conference in Toronto. It's televised on Rogers and it's also available on the Toronto Police Service's website.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the question. There is a short list, and the easy answer is that sure, we can say to do this, this and this. The long answer is that when electricity was first put in, anything electric could be plugged in and there were many house fires. Then we developed grounding and all these things.

Information & Ethics committee  New Horizons for Seniors is a federal program from which we receive funding, $25,000, to educate seniors on fraud. We receive a number of invitations, which we are now unable to fulfill, from seniors groups, hospitals, nursing homes, and the City of Toronto's seniors' forum to go out and provide educational material.

Information & Ethics committee  It's called “The Little Black Book of Scams”. It's produced by the federal Competition Bureau.

Information & Ethics committee  In this particular one, and I get these new apps on an ongoing basis, it would be the school, because it's not something that would really raise red flags, “Oh, look, they're going to track how many jumping jacks,” unless you were coming to a committee like this, right? I will send the link to the committee, because I think it's a very interesting part of what we're discussing.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think very many of them know at all. This is one of my big difficulties. These are not being reported. Certainly, the resources are not being given to our police forces to do this. If there is an information area—and I work with the Toronto Police Service financial crimes unit—it's viewed as almost a victimless crime.

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of the ABCs of Fraud group that we were working on with consumers, in its evolution I got to see all of the information that had been prepared. It went right from the little skits they had done 10 years ago that were very vaudevillian, that were telling people about somebody telephoning with a granny scam and things like this.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee. The Crime Prevention Association has been working with consumers and with government at various levels for over 30 years. We look upon our duties as mainly protecting the interests of individuals and the public. We do work a great deal with corporations and the private sector, but it's mainly on working with consumer groups and with individuals who have come into contact with people who perhaps may have stolen their identity or used their identity, or with whom they are concerned that their identity might be at risk.