Sun
Canadians are shopping online, paying bills online, and doing their banking online in steadily greater numbers. One-quarter of all Canadians now pay their bills online, and we bought $36 billion worth of goods and services online in 2005, double the 2003 figure.
About the only thing growing as fast as e-commerce and e-banking, it seems, is e-crime. Identity theft, credit-card fraud and other such online abuses are a growing cause of concern for the authorities, lawmakers, merchants and ordinary Internet users. There are no reliable Canadian figures on cyber-crime, but United States estimates put the annual cost of such offences there at $6 billion or more. The British government cites a 50-per-cent increase in two years.
The latest concerns, in Canada and elsewhere, include “vishing” — using Voice-over-Internet-Protocol service to trick consumers into giving their credit card numbers.
So far, concern has not given way to much action by the Canadian government. Canadian justice ministers had the issue on their agenda when they met last week in Newfoundland, but the communique issued after the meeting said only that they had “asked their officials to continue to work on the development of initiatives and approaches to address this important issue.” That won’t do much.
Fortunately, the private sector is taking the lead in the continual technological and public-awareness “arms race” with cyber-scammers. Examples are easy to find: MasterCard has just announced Online Fraud Monitor, “an advanced fraud detection and mitigation tool that uses a sophisticated risk-scoring model to detect potential fraudulent PIN debit transactions in real time, during the authorization process.” ING Direct Canada is introducing new log-in procedures designed to make sure that “You know it’s us” and “We know it’s you.”
Several big companies which sell via the Internet, or which provide Internet-related hardware and services, have united to designate October as Cyber Security Awareness Month, issuing a deluge of reminders about firewalls, anti-spy software, common sense and so on.
It’s only natural for the private sector to move forcefully into preventive online security. By the nature of e-commerce, it is e-merchants and service providers who have the strongest incentive to fight online fraud.
Governments, meanwhile, have been able to do little beyond police work once frauds are detected. The Internet being what it is, national authorities in each country are severely handicapped in fighting international scams. The Canadian Bankers Association has called for identity theft to be made a crime, even though most dishonest use of someone’s personal data should already be covered by existing fraud laws.
But how can any law be enforced if you have been tricked into giving personal data to an online scammer somewhere in the backwoods of Bosnia, say? The ultimate beneficiary of the fraud may live only a few blocks from you, but proving that is a daunting challenge.
One useful measure would be greater control on spam e-mail which, as a federal task force noted last year, is increasingly mutating to include spyware, viruses and other threats. The task force made 22 proposals, including a call for more international co-operation against spam-based Internet fraud, and a call for governments to work with Internet service providers to choke off wholesale spam.
While government continues to mull these problems, individuals need to use cautious common sense. Internet commerce is convenient and efficient, but by now everyone should know that there can be dangers, too. Inform yourself.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
