Toronto police arrested a man this week and laid what is believed to be the first-ever charge of “Theft of Telecommunications”. The case involves accusations of child porn and Wi-Fi. We led our national newscast with this item on Friday night and yet, so far as I can tell, no other major media outlet picked this up and it received only cursory treatment in The Toronto Star and from The Canadian Press.
You can view my report on CTV News from a link here.
This charge is a bit murky from a legal standpoint. The police cannot say who the victim of the theft was. At the press conference announcing the charge, they could not say if the telecommunications services that were stolen were owned by a residence or a business. (The man was driving in a residential area, however, so it seems to a decent assumption that it was a home.)
It raises some questions for Wi-Fi users in Canada: If you find an open Wi-Fi network and jack in, can you be charged with theft?