Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown is pushing for a new pilot program to combat auto thefts in the city.

Brown says the City of Brampton will hand out free faraday bags – an inexpensive device that blocks the radio frequency from key FOBs– to thousands of car owners in five areas of the city.

In an interview with CP24, Brown says this is a band-aid solution to protect his residents while officials push for change at the national level.

“I don’t want to wait. I want to do something immediately to radically decrease the auto thefts that are happening to my community,” Brown said.

Peel police reported a 92 per cent rise in auto thefts in 2022 compared to 2019.Brown says in a “relay attack,” car thieves use the vulnerability of key FOBs to unlock and start vehicles in under 60 seconds before creating new key FOBs for stolen vehicles with diagnostic equipment.

“All these cars that are being stolen are enhancing organized crime in Canada. That’s a bigger problem,” Brown said.

The hope is that the use of faraday bags will help limit the prevalence of that sort of theft.

“A Faraday bag is a $6 item that can protect a $60,000 car from being stolen in less than 60 seconds,” Brown said in a news release.

Brown says Brampton will gauge the impact on auto thefts and if there’s a sharp decline they will expand the pilot program to other areas.

Brown says that the high number of auto thefts are a contributing cause to the high insurance premiums in his city.

The proposed pilot project is expected to go to city council as a whole for final approval on Feb. 8.