Your Access and Privacy Online News Summary for Saturday, April 11th. This week, we’re tracking a troubling new phase in the pressure on access and privacy rights across Canada.  In British Columbia, the provincial government has confirmed it is now using artificial intelligence tools in freedom of information processing, even as concerns grow about transparency, accountability and the lack […]

The Colorado Court of Appeals this week ruled that the City of Boulder cannot charge fees for body camera footage related to a complaint of officer misconduct, a decision supporters say is a major win for police transparency and accountability across Colorado. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Yellow Scene Magazine, […]

Nevada quietly signed an agreement earlier this year with a company that collects location data from cellphones, allowing police to track a device virtually in real time — all without a warrant. The software from Fog Data Science, adopted this January in Nevada through a Department of Public Safety contract, pulls information from smartphone apps […]

An updated video surveillance policy was reviewed and approved by Council this week which will guide the use of security cameras around town. Council received a proposed updated Video Surveillance Cameras Policy at the April 7 Committee of the Whole (CoW) meeting, presented by Brieanne Mader, the Town’s Deputy Corporate Officer. The proposal intended to […]

An internal Canadian Security Intelligence Service memo says allowing the spy agency to collect foreign intelligence overseas would capitalize on its “existing footprint and expertise,” but might also invite a host of problems. The memo says giving CSIS the capabilities of a foreign human intelligence service — like the American CIA or Britain’s MI6 — […]

Ontario has failed to collect more than 90 per cent of money owed by alleged animal abusers whose pets, livestock or menagerie were seized during investigations, The Canadian Press has learned. Since 2019, the province has charged owners money to care for animals seized by Animal Welfare Services to the tune of $10,633,241, documents obtained […]

The Town of Strathmore is implementing clerical changes to better align with current provincial legislation. During the April 1 council meeting, all three readings of the new Designated Officer Bylaw were passed unanimously.  “On June 11 of last year, the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) was replaced with the Access to Information Act and administration […]

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday effectively criminalized the activities of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning rights group Memorial, the latest step in an unrelenting crackdown on dissent and civil society organizations in the country amid its war in Ukraine. Separately, police in Moscow raided the offices of the prominent independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose chief editor […]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California officials on Thursday said they uncovered a multimillion-dollar scheme to use stolen identities from people outside the state to charge for hospice services paid for with a government insurance program. State Attorney General Rob Bonta said officials have charged 21 and have so far arrested 5 people involved as the […]

Prediction markets let people wager on just about anything — from basketball games to elections. And among more jarring bets recently, the fate of the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran. Shortly ahead of a fragile ceasefire agreement earlier this week, a new group of accounts on prediction market platform Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed […]

NEW YORK (AP) — A group of new accounts on the prediction market Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed bets on whether the U.S. and Iran would reach a ceasefire on April 7, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for these new customers. These bets were made even though, in the hours before […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the Defense Department is violating his earlier order to restore access to the Pentagon for reporters, a setback in the administration’s efforts to impede the work of journalists. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman sided with The New York Times for the second time in a […]