Fraudsters, beware: a quarter of the Canadian economy is now working together to catch you.
What happened: Canada’s big banks and telecoms are rolling out a new anti-fraud platform to share intel about scammers who have already stolen — or tried to steal — from the institutions or their customers.
Why it’s happening: Banks, telecoms, and tech firms have all been fighting scams in their own lane, but they haven’t really been comparing notes. By working together, experts say they can do a better job of tackling new schemes before they reach Canadians.
Australia notably cut scam losses by almost 40% in the first half of last year compared to 2023 after rolling out a similar cross-sector system.
Why it matters: Canadians lost a record-high $704 million to scams last year, though only 5% to 10% of fraud victims actually report their losses. That puts the real number somewhere closer to $7 billion to $14 billion.
An Angus Reid survey found that 80% of Canadians have encountered some sort of digital scam over the past two years, while 30% of Canadians fell for one.
Bottom line: With AI making already successful scams even more believable, stopping bad actors before they have the chance to dupe victims has become all the more important. Exhibit A: an 86-year-old Ontario woman lost more than $900,000 last year to a scam that used an AI deepfake video of Mark Carney.—LA
