Social media surveillance, web portal needed to keep watch on criminal groups: Opposition

Cybercrime and cyberbullying are putting Montrealers at increased risk, the city’s official Opposition party says.

Ensemble Montréal is urging the city and its police force to implement measures to keep people safe online and on social media – notably kids and teenagers.

A motion by Opposition city councillors Abdelhaq Sari and Philippe Thermidor – set to be tabled on Aug. 22 – urges the SPVM to create a “web portal” to keep watch on social networks.

They also want the city and police force to raise awareness of the dangers of cybercrime, cyberbullying and cyberstalking.

At a press conference Wednesday, Ensemble Montréal said social networks are increasingly being used by radical and criminal groups.

“Many disputes start online and then move to the streets,” said Thermidor, a borough councillor in Ovide-Clermont. “That requires constant awareness and prevention. This is the least the administration can do to help young people, their parents, their entourage and the authorities.”

Most cybercrimes involve social media: SPVM data

Ensemble Montréal wants to see several measures implemented before the end of the year, such as prevention tools through virtual platforms, advertising the city’s current online support services on social media, developing safe spaces online (chat platforms), and launching an awareness campaign and awareness week.

“These measures would be complementary to the hotline dedicated specifically to Montrealers affected by youth violence that we have proposed and adopted at the council,” said Sari, Ensemble Montréal’s public security spokesperson.

“We would be able to cover all angles, both preventive and coercive.”

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In a news release, the Opposition shared SPVM data showing files related to cybercrime jumped roughly 25 per cent in the last five years.

That SPVM data also shows 98 per cent of files handled by the force’s cyber investigation unit involve Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

Ensemble Montréal did acknowledge recent efforts by the SPVM to tackle the issue of cybercrime and cyberbullying, including hosting a forum on gun violence and creating anti-intimidation videos.

Projet Montreal’s Alain Vaillancourt on Aug. 10, 2022. (Credit: CityNews/Martin Daigle)

Projet Montreal’s Alain Vaillancourt, the head of public security of the executive committee, responded to the proposed motion on Wednesday.

He agreed focus needs to be placed on the online realm, but said the city is already making steps to tackle those issues.

“Social media is all around us, we can’t get away from it, and it’s always going to be with us, so from there we actively increased our cadence as to finding some solutions to it, along with the community and SPVM,” Vaillancourt. “I think it’s essential to deal with social media and the effects it has on the youth, and that’s what we’re tackling.”

Vaillancourt says many of the issues identified in the Opposition’s proposed motion were put forth by the city in their forum on gun violence.

“The forum that we did at the end of March – initiative by our administration – identified with community organizations that web and social media was a huge issue as far as violent crimes with kids and schools,” he said. “It’s not new, it was identified as a huge problem, and from the forum we’ve been working non-stop.

“We’ll have some announcements shortly to come as to how concretely, what’s going to be deployed and how it’s going to be deployed.”