New federal standards that could make Canadian vehicles a harder target for prolific car thieves are one of the results stakeholders hope for as the Canadian government invites provinces and industry officials together for a national summit.
Between them, an upgrade to the immobilizer, an anti-theft device that was the gold standard when it was introduced almost 20 years ago but now is defeated many times a day by high-tech thieves spiriting cars abroad, whose record-breaking crime spree shows no signs of letting up.
“My dream scenario would be having the vehicle be harder to steal in the first place”, says Bryan Gast of Équité Association, a not-for-profit that helps insurance agencies fight fraud.
“Whether it’s working with the CBSA at the port or modernizing vehicle standards for immobilizers, I don’t think there’s a silver bullet, but it’s where everyone is coming together”, says Gast.
Dominic Leblanc, The Public Safety Minister announced the summit for Feb. 8, inviting police from all levels of government, insurers, and auto industry representatives.
The government cited statistics that auto thefts are up 50 percent in Quebec, 48 percent in Ontario, 34 percent in Atlantic Canada, and 18 percent in Alberta. Nationwide, that adds up to about $1.2 billion a year, a report by Equite found.
In Toronto alone, police statistics show 12,170 vehicles were stolen in 2023, about 25 percent more than the previous year. In Toronto Carjacking has doubled, and there have been other instances of thieves breaking into houses while people are home only to get the car keys.
“One of the things which worries everyone is that this is increasingly becoming a violent crime where people are attacked in the process of stealing vehicles,” says Leblanc.
Once stolen, the cars are often taken into shipping containers, whisked away to Canadian ports, and put up for sale as far away as the Middle East and Africa. In 2022, an investigation by CTV News tracked one car stolen from Ottawa to a car lot in Nigeria.
“This is happening from coast to coast. There’s certainly international implications,” says former OPP commissioner Chris Lewis.
In 2007, the federal government instructed to install immobilizers in new vehicles. If the key is not noticed within a vehicle, the immobilizer makes it difficult to start the car.
However, the loophole thieves can use a device that tricks your car into thinking the key is in the vehicle. One method is through relay attacks that decode the signal a fob emits and boost it to someone near the car. A car assumes that the fob is inside and lets the driver start it.
Mass adoption of these methods has turned parking lots of vulnerable cars into a bonanza for thieves. And while criminals are developing new methods, the protections offered by car manufacturers haven’t kept up, said cybersecurity expert Claudiu Popa.
It’sa cat and mouse game with prepared crime,” says Popa, adding that one method that could help is authentication like a fingerprint scanner or a passwordwhich is effective on cellphones but hasn’t been employed on much more valuable vehicles.
In York Region, police found 52 stolen high-end vehicles worth $3.2 million bound for Azerbaijan and Georgia.
“It’s always amazing and startling when you open these cargo containers and to see that the stolen vehicles are there, getting ready to go abroad,” said Sgt. Clint Whitney. “It’s big business what these criminals are involved in.”
York Regional Police announced another multi-million-dollar stolen vehicle bust only a month before.
