Privacy order may boost burglaries in Ottawa, some fear
Last Updated: Thursday, September 13, 2007 | 11:00 AM ET
CBC News
The sale of stolen goods could jump in Ottawa after Ontario's privacy commissioner ordered the city to stop collecting personal information about people who sell goods to pawnshops and second-hand stores, says the head of the city's bylaw department.
"We will honour the request by the privacy commissioner," said Sue Jones in response to Commissioner Ann Cavoukian's ruling on Wednesday, which also requires the city to destroy existing records that contain personal information for about 44,000 people.
'There will be a lot of b and e artists going around stealing and selling jewelry to pawnshops.'— Steve Saikaley, pawnshop owner
But Jones anticipates compliance with the ruling, which is intended to protect people's privacy rights, will have some negative effects.
"This could open the door again to allow this kind of transaction to take place whereby illegal goods could be dropped off into shops and they could be sold without the police's ability to be able to even identify who may have brought them in."
The bylaw shut down the flow of difficult-to-trace stolen goods when it was enacted in the mid-1990s, Jones added.
Pawnshop owners such as Steve Saikaley said they also worry that flow will start again if they stop collecting the binders of information that they are accustomed to filling.
"There will be a lot of b and e artists going around stealing and selling jewelry to pawn shops," said Saikaly, who has been running a store on Dalhousie Street for years.
He added that the data on the people he buys from has been useful.
"If there's any problem with stolen goods, I can help the police identify the people who sold me the jewelry," he said.
Meanwhile, Ottawa police Insp. Gary Meeham said police now need to come up with other strategies to help them ensure stolen property does not "make its way through the system" undetected by police.
The City of Ottawa bylaw that currently requires all second-hand dealers to collect information such as the date of birth, and approximate height and weight of people who sell them items such as jewelry and electronics. They must also ask for and record numbers from government issued identification such as driver's licences.
Cavoukian called the practice a "grave infringement" on privacy rights.
"You have to draw the line. It's only in a police state where people who haven't committed an offence have to give information to the police," Cavoukian said in an interview with CBC-TV, adding that most of the people in the database are law-abiding. "So we have to make sure we preserve our freedoms."
According to Cavoukian's order, the city can continue to collect only the most essential personal information such as names, addresses and phone numbers and a description of the goods.
The city must update the commissioner on its compliance at the end of February.
