The rate of identity theft in Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ont. grew to three times the national average in 2014.

According to data from Statistics Canada, there has been a steady rise of cases in the region since 2010. Over the five-year period, the rate per 100,00 population increased from 0.58 to 15.98.

While the Ontario region has been ahead of the national rate since 2011, the gap grew significantly in 2014.

Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo had the second highest rate in Canada in 2014, falling behind Québec City, Que. (17.65) and just ahead of Edmonton, Alta. (14.15).

Acting staff sergeant Robert Cowan, is with the fraud branch of the Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS). He says the climbing rate isn’t shocking.

“I wasn’t surprised that we were that much higher on Stats Canada,” says Cowan.

He says there’s been a noticeable increase in identity theft in the area since 2009. So much so, that the WRPS created a unique set of classification codes within the fraud branch to help track the growing cases.

Cowan says before the new codes were introduced, identity theft was lumped into catch-all categories.

“We started to see a pattern of fraudulent behaviour and rather than doing this catch-all in a false pretense code or an uttering code, we wanted to get a specific look at what’s going on,” says Cowan.

The big switch has been shifting from reactive to proactive investigations.

“Locally we have targets we’ve dealt with and we have people charged,” says Cowan. “On the drug level, we’ve created an organized drug team within our fraud unit.”

He says, a growing problem in the region has been drug houses accepting pieces of stolen I.D. rather than money for drugs.

“When you think about it, you get money, you spend it, you’re done,” says Cowan. “If you give me two or three pieces of I.D., it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

The scheme crippled the unit’s resources, so they joined forces with the street unit to tackle the problem.

“For the longest time we were reactive. A crime would happen and we would investigate it and go backwards. So we tried to flip it to proactive,” says Cowan. “We wanted to look at trends and get in front of it before it happened.”

He says one pattern that has continued to grow, is the presence of organized crime online.

Cowan says, with identity theft, over the past six-years, organized crime has gotten involved and used the Internet as a vehicle for fraud.

“They can make a lot of money in a short period of time and be anonymous,” says Cowan. “They can pick whatever country they want as long as they have a decent wifi connection, and compromise people’s identities through a variety of different schemes.”

Cowan and the WRPS aren’t the only ones concerned about organized crime.

The RCMP states on its website that, “using identity theft to facilitate organized criminal and terrorist activities also appears to be a growing trend.”

A 2014 report by the RCMP, Cybercrime: An Overview of Incidents and Issues in Canada, included the 2013 cybercrime statistics from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC).

The report concludes with three key observations about cybercrime trends and threats to Canadians.

Cowan warns that we’ve become too complacent in the digital age, and says, that needs to change.

“People need to exercise more common sense when dealing with the Internet,” he says.

The RCMP provide detailed information about identity theft to Canadians on its website. It encourages  those concerned, to visit the CAFC’s website, which offers advice on how to protect yourself from identity theft.