‘Creep catchers’ violated privacy laws: watchdog
Surrey Creep Catcher, a vigilante organization that lures suspected pedophiles to meetings in order to shame them on social media, has been found to be violating the privacy of the “creeps” it exposes.
In a ruling released Tuesday, British Columbia’s Information and Privacy Commissioner ordered Creep Catcher to remove from the internet and destroy all recordings of meetings and chats with two men who ar- ranged online to meet someone they thought was an underage girl.
When the men turned up on separate occasions last year, they were instead met by Surrey Creep Catcher president Ryan LaForge and two other group members. The meetings were recorded and published online as LaForge and the other members denounced the men for seeking out sex with minors.
The organization also posted copies of the chats that led to the encounters.
Acting Information and Privacy Commissioner Drew McArthur found that Creep Catcher did not have a reasonable belief that the two men, who are not identified in the ruling, had committed a crime or were going to commit one. He said the tactics employed by Creep Catcher were not a legitimate investigation but a “fishing expedition.”
And the acting commissioner said Creep Catcher could not rely on the section of the B.C. Personal Information Protection Act that permits the disclosure of personal information for strictly journalistic purposes.
“In short, the organization’s true purpose in collecting, using and disclosing personal information is to ‘ name and shame’ those whom it considers to be creeps, rather than to offer a journalistic perspective on the issue,” McArthur wrote.
Creep Catcher has until Sept. 6 to comply with the order, but LaForge said in a Facebook video he has no intention of respecting the decision. “They can go f-- k themselves,” he said.
“I will never destroy, I will never take down videos voluntarily. I will fight to the very, very end to keep all these videos up. I will never destroy chat logs. These guys are predators.”
He accused the commissioner of taking the wrong side and vowed to repost the offending videos: “There are predators out there, and our government is wanting to bury it, wanting to hide it, wanting to delete evidence?”
McArthur said in an interview that nobody has ever refused to comply with a ruling from the commissioner since the province’s privacy law was passed in 2003. If the order were not respected, the matter would be referred to the Supreme Court of British Columbia; under the law, non-compliance can result in a maximum fine of $100,000.
He said it is not his job as commissioner to pass judgment on the person filing a complaint.
“These are fundamental privacy rights of an individual, no matter what else is going on.”
LaForge said he is ready to go to court. “This is what I signed up for,” he said. “We knew it was going to be a long road. We knew there were going to be challenges and bumps. … They’re trying to cease- and- desist us slowly, bit by bit, and it’s not going to happen, I can promise you. All they’re doing is throwing gasoline on the fire.”
The fi rst complainant in the privacy case had responded to an ad posted by Creep Catcher in the “Strictly Platonic” section of Craigslist. In its online communication with the complainant, Creep Catcher pretended to be a 15-year-old girl and proposed a meeting at a public place to “chill.”
The second complainant, who has a condition affecting his cognitive abilities and behaviour, posted an ad on Craigslist seeking to meet a woman his own age. Creep Catcher responded posing as a 20- year- old woman, who later said she had a 14- yearold friend who would like to meet the complainant. The complainant arranged to meet the supposed 14- yearold in a public place.
This is not the first time LaForge’s tactics have landed him in trouble. He is facing two charges of assault in connection with Creep Catcher operations in Surrey in April.
In one incident recorded on video, LaForge is seen pushing a man and threatening to knock him out. The man was later charged with child l uring. The second charge stemmed from a similar incident two weeks later.