- You already know that hitchhiking is stupid.
- When walking after dark stay in well lit areas where there are people nearby in case you need help. If a light on or near campus is burned out write to fixit@mta.ca.
- If you are being attacked scream and yell "FIRE". The screaming might startle the attacker and alert bystanders.
- Keep your residence, residence room, house or apartment doors locked. Only allow people that you know and trust into your residence, residence room or home. Ask for I.D. from service people (i.e. meter readers, oil company or telephone representatives, or repair persons. Call the company they represent. If they ask to use the phone, make the call for them without letting them in. If the lock on a door on campus is broken write to fixit@mta.ca.
- Take a self-defense course. Articles 34-37 of the Criminal Code say that you are allowed to use reasonable force to defend yourself. A self defense course can be arranged through the Office of the Harassment Advisor harassment@mta.ca.
- Always be aware of your surroundings.
- Think up some tips of your own that will apply to your life, school, job, and lifestyle. You can contribute tips to this page by sending them to harassment@mta.ca.
Be careful about posting personal or private information. Do not use your full name for your user ID, and change your password often.
Report harassing e-mail or chat room abuse to the Harassment Advisor and Computing Services. If you know the ISP of the person, tell that ISP too. They can cut off the person's account if it is being used to harass others. Ask about tools to block unwanted communication.
Do a Web search on cyberstalking. You will find many sites with tips and information. Some can help track down harassers, document their origin and send reports to you or the police.
Criminal harassment can be conducted through the use of a computer system, including the Internet. Although this type of conduct is described in various ways, not all such conduct falls within Canada's definition of criminal harassment. For example, "cyber-stalking" or "on-line harassment" is often used to refer to
- direct communication through e-mail;
- Internet harassment, where the offender publishes offensive or threatening information about the victim on the Internet; and
- unauthorized use, control or sabotage of the victims computer.
In some cyber-stalking situations, criminal harassment charges may be appropriate; however, depending on the activity involved, charges under sections 342.1 (unauthorized use of a computer), 342.2 (possession of device to obtain computer service) and subsection 430(1.1) (mischief in relation to data) should also be considered. Activities that can be considered cyber-stalking can include delivering threatening or harassing messages through one or more of the following:
- chat rooms
- message boards
- facebook.com
- newsgroups and
- forums
Other variations of cyber-stalking include the following:
- sending inappropriate electronic greeting cards
- posting personal advertisements in the victim's name
- creating Web sites that contain threatening or harassing messages or that contain provocative or pornographic photographs, most of which have been altered
- sending viruses to the victim's computer
- using spy-ware to track Web site visits or record keystrokes the victim makes; and
- sending harassing messages to the victim's employers, co-workers, students, teachers, customers, friends, families or churches or sending harassing messages forged in the victim's name to others
A useful definition of "cyber-crime" is used in a 2002 Statistics Canada publication on cyber-crime: "a criminal offence involving a computer as the object of the crime, or the tool used to commit a material component of the offence." See Melanie Kowalski, Cyber-crime: Issues, Data Sources, and Feasibility of Collecting Police-Reported Statistics. (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2002)
Richard Gill & Kelly Watson, "Review of Recent Literature on Criminal Harassment" (Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada, forthcoming in 2004); and Louise Ellison & Yaman Akdeniz, "Cyber-stalking: the Regulation of Harassment on the Internet" [1998] Criminal Law Review (December special edition: crime, criminal justice and the Internet) 29.
Maintained by Heather Bembridge
September 5, 2007