Firearms owner says RCMP envelope tips thieves

Gunning for privacy
By JENNY YUEN, SUN MEDIA

Last Updated: 4th October 2008, 2:31am

Firearms owners feel they have a gun to their heads when sensitive government documents arrive at their homes wrapped in an envelope that jeopardizes their privacy, says a GTA gun owner and the spokesman for an Ontario gun association.

It's the crest and name of the RCMP on the outside of their mail that has them up in arms.

"You could tell your criminal buddies that at this particular address they have guns in the house, so break in," the gun owner, who didn't want to be named, told the Sun.

The man, in his 40s, feels anyone seeing a letter with the RCMP crest on it could assume there are firearms at the residence. The RCMP sends information to gun owners for a variety of purposes, including licence renewals and weapons transfer documents.

"This envelope is the tip-off," he insisted.

MORE EXPLICIT

Such correspondence once included the words, "Chief Firearms Office" and the office's address on the outside of the envelope when the OPP looked after such gun-related business.

After a four-year battle, the man was successful in getting the OPP in 2005 to agree to simply put on the letters "CFO" on such envelopes. But in 2006 the RCMP took over the job of sending out the letters.

The man, who owns six guns, is now calling for the RCMP to send out plain envelopes that do not identify the force.

An RCMP spokesman defended the markings.

They had in the past put a different crest on which was supposed to be more discreet. However, people didn't recognize the mark.

"The downside of this practice was that many people did not know (the look of) the crest, and they considered the mail as junk mail and tossed it in the garbage," Sgt. Greg Cox said yesterday.

IMPORTANT INFO

"In throwing out these letters, they were missing out on important information such as licence renewals. This causes other issues, an important one being the loss of grandfathering privileges."

"For that reason, the (current) RCMP identifier was deemed a valid compromise as there is all kinds of correspondence that could make it to one's house from the RCMP," Cox said.

Canada Post tries to ensure that "all mail is safeguarded while in their custody," CanPost's Albert Lee said.

The federal privacy commissioner's office has also said the envelope markings don't break privacy laws.

"We haven't been presented with any concrete evidence to support that an individual has been targeted due to this practice," spokesman Anne-Marie Hayden said yesterday.

"It's not anonymous enough," the gun owner said. "If you get a credit card bill, no one can compromise your information and harvest things from it. How could the guys in Ottawa screw this up?"