ARCHIVED - Letter
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Ottawa, 14 January 2013
Mr. Bernard Lord
President and Chief Operating Officer
Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
1110-130 Albert Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5G4
File No.: 8665-C12-201211317 - Mobile Device Theft and the Canadian Wireless
Telecommunications Association Response
Dear Mr. Lord:
This is further to your letter dated November 27, 2012, which was in response to the Commission letter dated September 28, 2012, regarding mobile device theft and the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association’s (CWTA) actions to address this issue.
Commission staff acknowledges that the Canadian wireless industry has engaged in and will continue to be engaging in tangible initiatives to help mitigate the impact of the loss or theft of mobile wireless devices on consumers and recognizes the commitment of the CWTA in this regard. Commission staff appreciates the effort that the CWTA has made to provide to the Commission the information it requested in its September 28, 2012, letter.
Public Education Campaign
Commission staff congratulates the CWTA on its industry supported public education campaign, especially its success in engaging the support of broadcasters. Commission staff would appreciate an update on November 1, 2013, from the CWTA on its public education campaign and the success that has been achieved in attaining the desired outcome of a more informed and aware consumer. To that end, Commission staff would be interested in learning what performance measures the CWTA is using to assess the success of this campaign.
Database
Commission staff is pleased that the CWTA anticipates that most of its members will have joined GSMA and begun using the IMEI database before the September 30, 2013, deadline established by the CWTA. To give the public and the Commission an opportunity to assess the progress of the industry in meeting this deadline, the CWTA is
asked to report to the Commission on November 1, 2013, confirming whether or not 100% participation has been achieved by the industry imposed deadline, and if not, what steps will be taken to achieve 100% participation and in what timeframe.
CWTA Handset Security Working Group
Based on the information provided by the CWTA, Commission staff has a better appreciation of the role played by the CWTA Handset Security Working Group and the context in which this Working Group operates. Commission staff understands the challenges associated with including representation of enforcement agencies on this Working Group, but Commission staff would encourage the CWTA to continue to cultivate its relationship with law enforcement agencies, as the issue of lost and stolen mobile wireless handsets cannot be effectively managed without the collaboration of all of the relevant stakeholders.
Statistics
Commission staff recognizes that the CWTA and the Canadian wireless industry faced a number of challenges in compiling the data on lost and stolen mobile wireless handsets and that there are a number of caveats that need to be considered when examining this initial data. Commission staff awaits with interest the results of the efforts of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) and Statistics Canada in developing a dataset that may be used as a verification tool for this initial data collected by the industry and any future data reported by the industry. Commission staff notes that the CWTA Handset Security Working Group is facilitating the development of “standard and streamlined data collection” by the Canadian wireless industry and looks forward to seeing the refined data. To that end, Commission staff is requesting that the CWTA report on an annual basis, starting November 1, 2013, data on lost and stolen handsets, broken out by province, to allow the public and the Commission the opportunity to inform themselves with respect to the scale of this issue and to what degree it may be changing year over year.
This letter will be posted on the Commission’s website and the CWTA response and any subsequent correspondence will become part of a publically accessible file. For these reasons, if any documents filed contain information designated confidential, including personal information, such as full names, e-mail addresses, postal/street addresses, telephone and facsimile numbers, please provide an abridged version of this information.
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Commission staff looks forward to continuing to collaborate with the CWTA and the Canadian wireless industry to find solutions to this issue, which will potentially impact more Canadians each year as the use of mobile, wireless handsets, especially smartphones, becomes even more ubiquitous in Canadian society.
The CWTA is requested to submit to the Commission the information identified in this letter by November 1, 2013.
Sincerely,
Original signed by:
Barbara Motzney
Chief Consumer Officer
Consumer Affairs and Strategic Planning
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