By Nicole Rutherford

There is a great disparity between Statistics Canada and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Services (CSIS) for the record of how many people have fled Canada to participate in terrorist activity—and that calls into question whether anyone really knows the numbers.

Since 2012 Statistics Canada had been keeping track, and country-wide they have found a total of 14 people. In contrast, a CSIS announcement this February claimed that they’re aware of approximately 130 people leaving the country for terrorist purposes (no one at CSIS could confirm when this started).

While Statistics Canada representative Anthony Ertl explained via email that the “leaving Canada to participate in activity of terrorist group” is a relatively new violation that is tracked from submitted police records, the difference is still quite alarming.

Former CSIS agent Mubin Shaikh, who is famous for unraveling the Toronto 18 plot while working as an undercover agent, suggested some reasons behind this.

“CSIS is not a police agency, their mandate is to collect information related to the security of Canada,” Said Shaikh. He said if information is indicative of a crime, it then goes to the RCMP.

However, CSIS is not compelled to report to Statistics Canada. Shaikh also noted that while CSIS is often aware of people leaving the country, it’s hard to determine their actions if they come back in a way that would hold up in the Canadian courts.

“I can guarantee people are coming back saying they did humanitarian work and we have no evidence of the contrary,” said Shaikh.

Shaikh said that people also have to be aware of the interpretation of the numbers—130 for example, speaks to all known and charged terrorists leaving Canada to anywhere in the world: Syria, Iraq, Somalia or elsewhere.

“The number of people who have been charged to Syria is very low—maybe 18 or 20. You can’t charge dead guys, right?” Said Shaikh.

Shaikh himself turned to radicalization in his teenage years, travelling to Iraq to witness the rise of the Taliban, as well as returning to Syria for a couple of years to study the Islamic religion before de-radicalizing and being contracted by CSIS. Still a practicing Muslim, he speaks from experience when he says that a bigger problem in Western culture is the ideology that people need to be stopped through aggressive enforcement, rather than preventative measures known as counter-radicalization.

University of Calgary professor of political science specializing in terrorism studies, Michael Zekulin, agreed.

“We need counter-radicalization strategies that involve a community partnership between law-enforcement, religious leaders and local groups,” said Zekulin. “This is a multi-faceted problem that require multiple strategies.”

Zekulin pointed towards the Calgary Police’s ‘Redirect Program’ as a good example of counter-radicalization. The program was launched after there were a series of charged extremists out of Calgary including Farah Mohamed Shirdon and the Gordon Brothers
(Statistics Canada only notes one terrorism flight out of Calgary).

Shaikh spoke highly of the Calgary program, but said it was the only effective program in Canada.

“What we’re seeing is the failing on the RCMP in particular,” Said Shaikh. “Their outreach sucks.”
He said that a top-down, authoritarian approach from police makes most Muslim communities feel under siege rather than safe.

As far as numbers go, Shaikh says perspective is what should be noted, with 4000 radicalists from all westernized countries amongst several million Muslims.

“You can’t stop everybody, let’s be realistic,” Shaikh said. “You’re gonna have these people. I mean God has been telling people ‘thou shalt not kill’ for however long but here you have it, people killing each other.”

October has begun with the police charging a 33-year-old Ottawa man after investigating allegations of child luring online – and this is just the tip of the iceberg, as the rate of online child luring cases in Ontario have doubled in the past five years, according to crime data from Statistics Canada.

Matthew Johnson, director of education at Media Smarts (an organization promoting digital and media literacy in youth), said that while the actual number of cases are small, “it does stand out when we look at overall trends of violent crime in Canada.”

“When crime in general is declining, when we see a rise, it is worth our attention,” Johnson said.

The increasing number of reports may be attributed to various factors, and Johnson pointed to the rising awareness, particularly on the part of law enforcement.

In 2012 for example, the RCMP and other agencies took part in “Operation Snapshot” – an investigation targeting high-risk offenders of online child exploitation. A follow-up “Operation Snapshot II” was conducted in 2013, and the two operations yielded 37 suspects and the rescue of three children.

Johnson said perpetrators manipulate youth into seeing online sexual exploitation as a consensual relationship.

“Perpetrators are open about their romantic intentions, while youth are warned about somebody who’s pretending to be something they’re not. When someone is open about that, it can be seen as a marker of safety.”

He added that the same kinds of youth are at higher risk of luring and sexual exploitation both online and offline. Demographically, teenagers are more likely to be targeted – teenage girls, and boys who are either gay or questioning their sexuality, are even more likely targets, Johnson said. Additionally, Johnson said that young survivors of previous offline sexual abuse, youth experiencing mental difficulties, in serious conflict with their parents and/or seek out sexualized spaces online are often targeted.

Contrary to the belief that online predators “trick or deceive” kids, Johnson said there is evidence to show that predators rarely lie about their age or motives. Their tactic is not one stemming from deception, but from seduction – they shower their target with attention, sympathy, affection and kindness.

As well, the majority of adolescents who accept meeting in person are aware that they will likely be engaging in sexual activity – and for most of these youth, the encounter evolves into a recurring sexual relationship.

Valerie Steeves, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, said that her research indicates “the kinds of concerns that adults have are often out of touch with the kinds of problems kids report online.”

For example, in one of her surveys “Young Canadians in a Wired World” in 2004, many students pointed to incidents where they were solicited for sex online, and most saw this as a good experience.

“That makes sense when you think of the developmental needs of teens, to explore their sexuality and experiment with various roles,” said Steeves.

“Our qualitative participants also consistently tell us that they have lots of strategies for minimizing risk of harm, like unfriending a contact. They also tell us that adult interventions around cyberbullying make it harder for them to talk … because too many schools rely on police intervention and as soon as the police are called in, the teen loses control of the situation.”

As an indictable offence, punishment for online child luring in Canada ranges from imprisonment between one and 10 years, while as a summary offence, it ranges from 90 days to 18 months.

Johnson advises parents to have open, ongoing conversations with their children about online issues, as they are just as important as offline ones.

“We don’t need to scare them – we need to prepare them,” Johnson said.

“They have to understand that when it comes to sexual content, it’s media and it’s not real … they have to understand what a healthy relationship is. They have to understand the idea of consent, that they have the right to consent or not to consent … there are limits on what they can be asked to consent to.”

Sitting near the waterfront of Toronto is a home for safe space and recovery.

While the building served as the Lakeshore Asylum until being closed in the 1970s, it has been restored by 400 volunteers to offer a different kind of refuge; opening 17 years ago as The Gatehouse. The institution is a peer run support group for adult survivors of child sexual abuse.

Maria Barcelos, the manager of The Gatehouse, who is also a full-time student focusing on restorative justice at a joint program between the University of Guelph and Humber College, says she believes the house offers an open environment for voices to be heard that otherwise wouldn’t be.

“We call ourselves a survivor group,” says Barcelos. “They’ve had this happen to them and they’ve been basically left alone to deal with it or get over it as society tells them to. There are people who come to our program and spend the first 10 weeks curled up in a ball crying because that’s the only time they’ve ever felt safe to cry. They don’t even have to say anything.”

In 2012, a new criminal charge was added to combat sexual abuse for children: making sexually explicit content available to children.

Sgt. Maureen Bryden, an acting member of Ottawa Police Force’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit, says the new charge was put in place for when it wasn’t a full case of luring by the perpetrator.

“For example, the online chat when the predator exposes himself, [or] the predator who grooms a child by providing porn,” said Sgt. Bryden via email.

While the charge may be new, the numbers are steadily increasing. In Ottawa, the number of arrests for making sexually explicit content available to children in 2013-2014 jumped from two to nine, accounting for 24 per cent of all of the arrests in Ontario.

“I have had people who have come to our program who were exposed to pornographic images as a child” says Barcelos.

“Some have developed sexual dysfunctional behaviour like sex addictions. Sometimes they deal with alcoholism, drug use, or the inability to maintain a relationship or connect emotionally.”

Barcelos says she believes The Gatehouse is also one of the first co-ed support groups in Canada.

“What I see is the women start to regain their trust in men. Some of the male survivors have also been perpetrated on by females, so it works in that aspect too.”

Toronto only had three arrests, despite having a population of over 6 million in 2014, while Ottawa only had a population of 1.3 million.

“Luck of the draw really,” said Sgt. Bryden, “The persons charged happened to fall into that charge. We did not change the way we did business.The courts have have provided us with extra tools for our toolkit.”

Ottawa accounted for 8 per cent of the total 105 arrests in Canada.

Per 100,000 people in Ottawa, one of them will be arrested for making sexually explicit content available to children. In Toronto, the rate per 100,000 is as low as 0.05.

For Barcelos, it isn’t just an increase in arrests that matter, but the support the survivors later receive.

“The polices’ job is to bring the offender in and charge them and rightfully so, but they don’t do the after effect part,” says Barcelos. “It’s not their fault, but it’s outside the scope of their job.”

“If we don’t talk about these things it’s going to keep happening. If we don’t help people who have survived childhood sexual abuse they are going to keep using drugs or possibly committing crimes or even committing suicide.”

The number of human trafficking cases in Ottawa jumped from just 1 in 2010, to 26 in 2014, according to Statistics Canada data.

The national numbers mirror the capital’s near-exponential increase in human trafficking crimes: in 2010 Canada saw just 23 incidents. That number quintupled to nearly 140 cases nationally in 2014.

“I don’t think we’ll ever know the true numbers in terms of what the situation is, just because it’s such a clandestine crime to begin with,” says Zaneta Miranbigi, chair of the Ottawa Coalition to End Human Trafficking (OCEHT). “What’s being reported is a gross underestimation of the actual crime.”

So why have so many more cases sprung up across Canada in the past four years? Does this mean human trade is on the rise, or does it mean law enforcement is cracking down on this hidden crime?

Recognizing a problem

In 2012, the federal government introduced a national action plan to combat human trafficking. The extension of the plan is on the table for this upcoming election, with the Conservatives promising another 5 years and $20 million to combat the issue should they win.

In 2013, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) began a pilot project for a Human Trafficking Unit. The project wraps up at the end of this month after a two-year trial period, and will submit its recommendations to the service.  Sgt. Jeff LeBlanc, an investigator with the unit, says his goal is to maintain or increase the size of the unit.

“Looking at our caseloads, this should be a permanent, dedicated unit,” says LeBlanc. “By April this year, we were already at 40 cases.”

LeBlanc says he expects to see even more cases by the end of 2015, making it the highest year on record for human trafficking crimes in Ottawa.

He also notes that the increases in reported crime are likely due to increased enforcement and a specifically dedicated team, rather than an increase in human trafficking itself.

“When there’s no unit or education of officers to deal with this stuff, and the public doesn’t know about it…then the problem isn’t being addressed,” he says.

 Breaking Barriers

Understanding the definition of human trafficking is one of the biggest barriers for combatting the crime. Simone Bell, an Ottawa victim turned advocate, was caught in human trafficking within the Ottawa region for nearly 3 years before she escaped.

She says at the time, she didn’t even know that she was being trafficked. It wasn’t until speaking with a social worker that she realized what had happened to her.

“When you don’t know that it’s happening to other people, and when you really don’t know how to put a name to what’s happening…how can you even come forward?” she says.

A second barrier is that most people are unaware that this crime even happens in Canada. In reality, about 90 per cent of human trafficking cases are domestic—not involving any foreign women.

“It’s a matter of us thinking ‘we’re a western country, a civilized country, this would never happen here’,” says Miranbigi. “But it’s been happening here, it’s just been a little more hidden.”

Miranbigi agrees with LeBlanc, saying she has not noticed any increase in human trafficking rates. She attributes climbing cases to increased awareness of the general public, front line workers such as doctors and outreach workers, as well as law enforcement.

“Now, warning signs that that would have been missed are not due to increased education and awareness,” she says.

Ottawa a hotspot for trafficking

With its picturesque parliament buildings and winding canals, Ottawa seems to be too perfect a place for human trafficking to exist. But, as a capital city and business centre, Ottawa is one of the main pipelines for the human trade in Canada, according to Miranbigi.

“This crime is more prevalent in Ottawa than anywhere else in the country,” she says. “The biggest hubs are in Kanata and Barrhaven where you think you’re in suburb heaven.”

Miranbigi works with Bell to advocate and spread word that this crime is alive and well in Canada. Like LeBlanc and Miranbigi, she believes increased efforts and awareness are to blame for the higher number of trafficking crimes.

“Human trafficking today…it’s like going back to the 50s looking at domestic abuse. People didn’t talk about it, it didn’t happen, it was something you dealt with in the home. Now we have programming for domestic abuse and women’s shelters and things to help combat that. I can only hope the same will happen with human trafficking,” she says.

It’s the crime nobody wants to talk about. When the Vancouver Police Department issued its 2015 Annual Business Plan Report, reducing violent crime, organized crime and motor vehicle collisions was at the top of their goals for the year. Suspiciously absent was any sort of recommendation or information about child pornography cases, which saw a 750 percent increase in rate in the city from 2013 to 2014, according to Statistics Canada data.

It was the second-largest rate increase in the country and it comes after four years in which the rate had been relatively steady. In total, the city of Vancouver had 1077 child pornography cases, more than every province other than Ontario and, obviously, B.C.

“I can’t really explain that, except that child pornography is one of those crimes that people don’t report,” said Jessie Horner, a law professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and the author of Canadian Law and the Legal System. “If your house is vandalized, you report that, and you report your bicycle being stolen. Child pornography is one of those things that is never reported. It completely depends on police investigation.”

It is normal for police forces to celebrate big upticks in crime, as usually it can mean that the authorities are doing a more concentrated job cracking down on the violation in question. However, there are conflicting factors here. For one, not many cities would like to promote themselves as hubs of child pornography. There’s also the question of how this could happen. Was Vancouver treated with an influx of people engaging in this activity or was there a change in the way information was gathered?

“I remember there was one popular online takedown that happened last year, so your jump might have been as a result of that,” said Simon Fraser University professor Richard Frank, referencing the shuttering of Freedom Hosting, a server that hosted child pornography sites. “I would expect something like that to make a big dent sometime after the actual take down happened as the data they find is collected and charged against individuals who are arrested after the fact.”

Horner also believes that the influx is more due to police work than anything else. “What you can say is that police are doing something different and they are uncovering child pornography to a much greater extent,” says Horner. “One of the possible reasons is that the police have greater and greater powers of surveillance, more ability to get wire taps, to get information from servers and so on. To me, this is a reflection of increased police powers. This actually concerns me, because it says something about our loss of freedom, our loss of privacy.”

Bea Rhodes, president of the Vancouver-based counselling institution Rhodes Wellness College, offers up another perspective. Formerly working with Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA), a community-based initiative that works with sex offenders as they re-enter society from prison, Rhodes laments the shutdown of the Vancouver branch of COSA in 2010. “I have worked with sex offenders for many years and this group needs our support and encouragement,” she says. “No one ‘decides’ they want to be attracted to children. It is an unfortunate kink that causes life long suffering for both offenders and victims. But, trying to help pedophiles is not a popular avocation.”

The closure of COSA-Vancouver had to do with the cancelling of a federal contract. And while the initiative was saved in 12 cities around the country due to partial funding from the United Way, Vancouver’s branch didn’t survive. The city might need to see it return.

Last year Ottawa hit a record number of incidents of gun violence, surprising in a country that has been seeing an overall decrease of weapons violations since 2008. “The huge spike in shootings points to a mini ‘arms race’ among street gang members who are arming themselves with guns as they fight over drug territory,” says the Ottawa Police in a CBC interview.

According to data from Statistics Canada, Ottawa saw 68 firearms violations and 207 total weapons violations in 2014. Isolated, these numbers are not surprising. Trends in the data show total weapons violations in Ottawa have been fairly stable since 2008, and total firearms violations in Ottawa have been slowly increasing since the same year. The surprise comes in the massive increase in cases of discharging a firearm with intent, from 4 incidents in 2013 to 19 incidents in 2014. That’s a 365% increase. In comparison, Canada only saw a 20% increase for the same offence.

A Tough Problem

Nancy Worsfold, Executive Director of Crime Prevention Ottawa, says that despite knowing where the shooting are coming from and why, primarily low income neighbourhoods, it’s still difficult to determine the best way to solve the problem, saying, “We’re all challenged by gun crime and gangs, but we don’t approach them all the same. She believes the best way to tackle these types of offences is to act proactively. “Public opinion polling indicates Canadians prefer crime prevention to law enforcement,” she says.

The Coalition for Gun Control also believes that combating gang violence needs to have an “integrated strategy” designed to address violence at its roots. Their mandate states that we need to do several things such as addressing the culture of violence that glamorizes guns, and addressing the root causes of violence. We also need to ensure that all citizens feel safe in their communities. This is important because insecurity is often a motive for people to procure weapons.

Another challenge of this type of crime is, “Everybody knows who the shooter was but nobody’s talking,” says Worsfold. “This is the main challenge of higher risk neighbourhoods.”

Skewed Statistics

Professor Irvin Waller, President of the International Organization for Victim Assistance, says that although victimologists have made several breakthroughs in terms of victim rights and reparations in the last 30 years, much still needs to be done. “These unacceptable measures of violence must be measured better,” he says. In Canada there is often a discrepancy between the violent crime statistics generated by the police and those generated by Statistics Canada. “Here in Canada we have not invested in getting good data,“ says Waller. “The important thing is not where the crime is going but what we’re going to do about it.”

The fact that Ottawa is seeing an increase in violent gun crime means more guns are on the streets. Last year Ottawa police seized 53 guns used in the commission of crimes, however only two were used in gang shootings.

To deal with the increasing violence, Ottawa has increased the capacity of their guns and gangs unit. But despite the record number of shootings, Ottawa only had seven homicides, a rate that has been declining for many years. Ottawa police credit the low homicide rate to the care of paramedics and hospital staff.

As one can see from the above graph, although the increase in violent gun crime is unsettling, Ottawa remains a relatively safe city outside of the gang element. The average citizen is likely not to be put in the position of having to deal with a shooting unless by exorbitant circumstances.

Winnipeg is a city divided. Split by the Canadian Pacific Railway there is literally a wrong side of the tracks.

Manitoba’s biggest city boasts the country’s biggest rates of robberies, rates that are nearly double most other major cities in Canada.

Over the years the rates have declined, but that still leaves Winnipeg with a major robbery problem. The question becomes what are the statistics leaving out.

Robbery is primarily a poverty crime according to Kate Kehler. Kehler is the executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg and deals with the effects and solutions of poverty everyday in her work. She adds that the majority of crime that happens within the city is poverty based and occurs in the North end of the city, which has the highest rates of homelessness. The city is “dramatically separated” by the railway Kehler said.

Statistics show that Winnipeg has average rates of unemployment and median income. However the stats do not show the entire picture. Kehler explains that Winnipeg has a high transient population that moves in and out of the city in addition to a high newcomer population.

In particular families are coming from the surrounding reserves into the big city. Winnipeg has the highest population of Aboriginals within any city in Canada at 10 per cent according to a 2006 census by Statistics Canada. Additionally it was found that Winnipeg has the largest population of Aboriginal youth.

“There is inherent fear of the other,” Kehler said noting the tensions between Aboriginals and non Aboriginals. She notes that a big part of the transient population is Aboriginals who moved to Winnipeg from reserves. She adds that there is a high rate of failure when it comes to integration because of lack of resources. Resources include affordable housing, jobs and education.

Youth from these populations arrive from the reserves behind their classmates. The gap in learning and Province’s practice of passing kids regardless leaves many ill equipped for the working world. “Often times the gangs are there waiting for them,” Kehler said.

Rick Linden said that the per child funding in residential schools is significantly less than the funding for other schools. Linden a researcher on crime prevention at the University of Manitoba said that in his studies of auto theft a large portion were youth. Of these youth Linden noted that most of them had not finished school.

In Winnipeg the youth rates of robberies are the highest in the country from 2010-2013.

Linden has experience with combating youth crime. Linden is the co chair for the Manitoba Auto Theft Task force. Through research it was found that young offenders committed the majority of auto thefts. The task force works with other organizations reduce youth committed auto theft. Education is a large focus in this initiative.

The efforts of the Manitoba Auto Theft Task force reduced auto theft in Winnipeg by 80 percent. Before this the rates of auto theft in Winnipeg was double other Canadian cities.

Programs like these deal with the root cause of high crime rates: poverty. Kehler said that the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg is trying to get a better idea of how many homeless people the city has in order to develop an action plan. The Council also has a strong focus on providing housing for those in need.

With dropping crime rates it is possible that one day those tracks will be no more than just a mode of transportation and not a divide.

This orange Niagara tabby cat attracts crime.

With his laidback personality and a deformed paw, Gimpy allures not only belly-rubs and strokes from around the neighbourhood, but also some petty theft.

Gimpy cost his owner seven counts of theft, and almost a hundred dollars in stolen property in the past year.

“I feel like it’s Gimpy!” said Eva Dudla, his 18-year-old owner. “He’s just attracting these things. Maybe it’s bad karma.”

Or maybe not. The chance of having something stolen in the Niagara region was more than double than in the metropolitan Toronto in 2014, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data.

St. Catharines and the Niagara region had the highest rate of theft under $5000 in Ontario in 2014.

According to analysis, the theft rate in the region increased by an average of over 40 per cent since 2010.

“I don’t know why these numbers went up,” said Constable Phillip Gavin, the media relations officer for the Niagara Police.

But Gavin said a possibility of the sudden increase could be related to an increase in crime reporting. “We may have an elevated number than other cities, but it may be the case that we have our public reporting more.”

But some theft seem too trivial to report to the police, said Dudla who’s had several cat-collars and a cat car-magnet stolen this year.

Unreported counts of theft are not represented in StatsCan numbers, like the seven Gimpy-related theft in the past year.

“It’s a cat collar,” said Dudla. “It is of value to me, but I feel like the police will be like ‘yeah, okay…’”

Dudla and Gimpy’s story began four years ago at a St. Catharines Goodwill where Dudla volunteered. A colleague’s cat had a dozen kittens and offered Dudla one for free.

The day she went to choose from the litter, she noticed one with a deformed paw. The colleague told her to leave the “sick ones” but Dudla insisted.

“She finally just let me,” said Dudla. “So I wasn’t supposed to have him in the first place.”

Dudla named her new friend Gimpy after his handicap.

Last year, Dudla bought a car magnet of a paw to symbolize her love for Gimpy.

“I love my cat so much, he’s my favourite thing ever,” said Dudla. “I wanted a little piece of him to bring around with me.”

After a shopping trip this spring, she noticed the magnet was peeled off her car. “I was like “Oh my goodness! Oh no!” and I was really upset,” she said.

Someone stole my “everything I learned about sarcasm I learned from my cat” magnet off my car.. Not like I wasn’t already having a bad day

— £va (@EvaDudla) April 12, 2015

But apparently, “this happens all the time,” according to Dudla.

Last October, Dudla reported her second stolen cat collar on twitter: 

This is the second time someone has stole my cats collar and I’m fucking pissed — £va (@EvaDudla) October 30, 2014

Since then, she’s had four more collars stolen off of Gimpy.

“I’d have one for three or four weeks, and then it disappears,” she said.

Gimpy is trained to use the bathroom outside so he wanders the neigbourhood every day. Dudla suspects that Gimpy’s friendly nature is exploited by the collar-thief.

“I call him a very ‘chill cat.’ He doesn’t even meow, really,” she said. “So I was disappointed at why people are like that, you know?” she said.

Gimpy’s bad luck may be a reflection of the increase in theft rates in the region.

But concerning the past year’s unsolved collar conundrum, Dudla is still stumped.

“I don’t know!” she laughed. “That’s why it confuses me so much. And it’s all about Gimpy, too! I feel like he has some connection with theft.”

Personal security is on everyone’s minds these days and rightly so. From the data leaks of Ashley Madison to the loss of personal health information in Alberta, breaches in private information are becoming a serious issue.

Incidents of identity theft across Canada have nearly tripled in the last five years. In turn, identity fraud has grown by 42 per cent between 2010 and 2014, according to data from Statistics Canada.

“There’s no way you can stop identity theft from external sources a hundred percent, but at least you can actually watch for it, and if it happens, with the best of safeguards, then you can put a stop to it right away,” said Norm Archer, professor at McMaster University. “A lot of companies just don’t do that.”

Archer is an expert in identity theft and fraud in the digital age. He said that the biggest issue to date is that people still have not learned the importance of protecting and encrypting their data.

“The sophistication is increasing almost daily and not enough people pay attention to it,” said Archer.

The most common form of fraud is called “existing account fraud”, according to Archer. This is what happens when somebody steals your credit card information and goes on a shopping spree.

“We knew that if identity theft became a serious situation then people would not be able to use the internet for commerce. And in fact, that is a deterrent to a lot of people,” said Archer. “They simply do not want to buy anything over the internet because they’ve heard stories about people who lose their identities.”

Such was the case with Larisa Romanovsky, a local Ottawa woman who had her visa information stolen despite taking all the usual precautions.

“I saw my statement online and found some suspicious transactions that I didn’t make,” said Romanovsky. “Someone was trying to buy something online using my card. I have never made online transactions.”

She immediately called her visa service with the bank of CIBC and they transferred her to the fraud department.

“They right away opened a case and started an investigation. They asked me what the last transaction that I made was. All the ones after it were fraud,” said Romanovsky.

She never did find out how the breach occurred but fortunately her problems were easily resolved. After a couple weeks of investigation the bank reversed the payments and issued her a new visa.

Archer said that the worst cases he has heard of people took out entire mortgages using stolen information.

“When you put your trust in these organizations, you assume that they know what they’re doing and that they will keep your data safe,” said Archer. “Unfortunately, too often, that turns out to be a not accurate supposition of what’s happening.”

According to Archer, about half of identity theft is by internal sources.

He said that companies should take steps to vet their employees and raise awareness among their employees about simple measure such as regularly changing their passwords and locking their computers.

He pointed to the hospital database system in Ontario as a good example of information security. When a nurse or a physician accesses a patient’s account, the information is logged into the database.

“When there are these big scandals, like Rob Ford when he was in the hospital, there were a number of people accessing his account and the hospital knew immediately who they were because they kept track of that,” said Archer.

The resulting class action lawsuits that often result in breaches of personal data can cost organizations millions of dollars. These problems could be minimized if companies took better care of their data, said Archer.

“It’s quite flabbergasting to find out that these things continue to happen even after all the lessons that we’ve been taught over the years,” said Archer.