Instruments for copying credit card data or forging or falsifying credit cards
342.01 (1) Every person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 10 years, or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction, who, without lawful justification or excuse, makes, repairs, buys, sells, exports from Canada, imports into Canada or possesses any instrument, device, apparatus, material or thing that they know has been used or know is adapted or intended for use
(a) in the copying of credit card data for use in the commission of an offence under subsection 342(3); or
(b) in the forging or falsifying of credit cards.
Forfeiture
(2) Where a person is convicted of an offence under subsection (1), any instrument, device, apparatus, material or thing in relation to which the offence was committed or the possession of which constituted the offence may, in addition to any other punishment that may be imposed, be ordered forfeited to Her Majesty, whereupon it may be disposed of as the Attorney General directs.
Limitation
(3) No order of forfeiture may be made under subsection (2) in respect of any thing that is the property of a person who was not a party to the offence under subsection (1).
Annotations | French
- Section 342.01
- The offences created by this section are “preliminary and preventative in nature”. In other words “they are designed to capture an open-ended scope of conduct in order to thwart the commission of the crime of forging or falsifying credit cards.” Such types of crimes are cause harm and are costly to Canadian society: R v Beauchamp, 2015 ONCA 260 at para 229.
- Thus, the reach of the section is broad and extend to both a variety of object that can be used in the commission of the offence (instruments, devices, apparatuses materials and things) as well as to a number of different types of activities (making, repairing, buying, selling, exporting, importing, or possessing those objects): R v Beauchamp, 2015 ONCA 260 at para 237.
- The mental element of offences pursuant to this section requires knowledge that the items in question: (i) have been used; (ii) have been adapted for use; (iii) or are intended for use in falsifying or forging credit cards: R v Beauchamp, 2015 ONCA 260 at para 237.
- By way of example “it is an offence to “make” any of the targeted items knowing that they are “intended for use” in forging credit cards. It is similarly an offence to “repair” or to “possess” them with the same knowledge”: R v Beauchamp, 2015 ONCA 260 at para 239.