You may know someone who has been a victim of identity theft. What you may not know is that, before today, police couldn’t charge fraudsters with “identity theft”. That changed when Bill S-4 was given Royal Assent by Parliament earlier today.
Thanks to the bill, titled An Act to amend the Criminal Code (identity theft and related misconduct), there are now three new Criminal Code offences related to identity theft:
- Obtaining and possessing identity information with the intent to use the information deceptively, dishonestly or fraudulently in the commission of a crime;
- Trafficking in identity information, an offence that targets those who transfer or sell information to another person with knowledge of, or recklessness as to, the possible criminal use of the information; and
- Unlawfully possessing or trafficking in government-issued identity documents that contain information of another person.
Before Bill S-4 came into effect, police had to use other Criminal Code provisions to target identity theft. Today’s development should help law enforcement officials attack a growing problem: the Canadian Council of Better Business Bureaus has estimated that identity theft may cost Canadians more than $2 billion annually.
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