Police bike registration reaches the Internet Era

The Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair will be announcing today that the police have now discovered the Internet, as far as bike registrations are concerned. An online bike registration is now available for Toronto cyclists to enter their bike's details into the database.

I've wondered about how many average cyclists have actually registered their bikes with their local police station. I haven't even done it myself (until now), though I have always kept a copy of the serial number, make, model, year and colour around to report to the police in the unfortunate event. The Globe and Mail reports that many more cyclists register than I would have expected:

Currently, 50,000 bikes are registered in police files. About 3,000 people a year download the current registration form and mail it in, or hand-deliver it to a police station.

Still, 50,000 is not that many when you consider that almost every household in Toronto likely has at least one bike, no matter how dusty and dilapidated.

Hopefully, the registration can at least increase the rate at which bikes are returned to the rightful owner. Currently 4000 bikes are stolen yearly and 1000 are turned in to police. The article doesn't mention how many are returned to the owners, but I suspect that it isn't a very high number. I've been to the Police auctions and seen many, many bikes.

By the way, I wonder what happens if you sell your bike and the new owner reports it stolen? Is there some way to transfer ownership online?