Measuring Identity Theft in Canada

Other industrialized countries, in particular, the United States and United Kingdom, collect statistics on the level of identity theft and fraud on a regular basis. In Canada, the collection and public reporting of these statistics is fragmented and probably not representative of the real rates of identity theft and fraud. In addition, there has been little effort to track trends in theses rates, or to use them to estimate the economic and social impact in an organized and logical manner. This lack of useful statistics is evident in the widespread lack of knowledge about identity theft displayed in the Canadian consumer population, business, and government.

There are four components to the "measuring" task of our project.

1. In December 2006, we conducted  our first national consumer survey of ID Theft using an Internet panel. The results of this survey are available in the paper "Measuring Identity Theft in Canada: 2006 Consumer Survey" (see abstract). The paper is available from the McMaster eBusiness Research Centre (Working Paper #21).
   
   We conducted a second consumer survey in February of 2008 and results are available in the paper "Measuring Identity Theft in Canada: 2008 Consumer  Survey" (see the executive summary). While the first survey collected details about a large number of historical cases of identity frauds, the second survey focuses on cases that occurred in the previous 12 months. The paper is available from the McMaster eBusiness Research Centre (Working Paper #23).
    

2. Two case studies will be conducted where organizations have experienced unlawful access to information resources. A electronic survey of firms within the industries studied in the case studies will determine their experiences and strategies for managing the threats associated with identity theft.
    

3. Five in-depth case studies within the financial industry will be used to develop and test a framework of classifications of identity theft, with the necessary definitions and measurement approaches. The framework will then be tested by a large scale survey of financial institutions.
    

4. Finally, the combination of our findings in the first three components will be used to generate a national index of identity theft and its impact, so that this can be tracked and trended over time.