Canadian Press

Source: Canadian Press


TSA tests facial recognition technology to boost airport security

BALTIMORE (AP) — A passenger walks up to an airport security checkpoint, slips an ID card into a slot and looks into a camera atop a small screen. The screen flashes “Photo Complete” and the person walks through — all without having to hand over their identification to the TSA officer sitting behind the screen. […]

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‘Systemic difficulties’ hampered review of Canada’s cyberspy service: watchdog

OTTAWA — A culture within Canada’s cyberspy service of “resisting and impeding” independent review has frustrated efforts to ensure it is obeying the law, say newly released documents from the federal intelligence watchdog. The unusually candid National Security and Intelligence Review Agency records from 2021 are the latest evidence of the watchdog’s irritation at trying […]

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Census rejecting some big city complaints of 2020 undercounts

Some of the largest U.S. cities challenging their 2020 census numbers aren’t getting the results they hoped for from the U.S. Census Bureau — an effort by Memphis to increase its official population resulted in three people being subtracted from its count during an initial appeal. Some successes have come from challenges to totals of […]

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Privacy commissioner appeals Federal Court decision in Facebook case

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is appealing a recent decision by the Federal Court, which sided with Facebook in a case tied to the Cambridge Analytica affair. A judge in April dismissed the federal privacy watchdog’s bid for a declaration that the social media giant, now known as Meta, broke the law […]

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Virginia joins list of GOP states leaving bipartisan effort to combat voter fraud amid conspiracies

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Election officials in Virginia have announced plans to withdraw the state from a bipartisan effort designed to ensure accurate voter lists and combat fraud — but that also has been caught up in conspiracy theories spread since the 2020 presidential election. When Virginia formally withdraws later this year, it will become […]

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Seattle to pay $2.3M to whistleblowers over ex mayor Durkan’s 2020 deleted texts

SEATTLE (AP) — The city of Seattle will pay $2.3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by employees who helped reveal that thousands of then-Mayor Jenny Durkan’s text messages had been deleted in 2020 amid protests over George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. The terms of the city’s settlement with Stacy Irwin […]

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Efforts underway to improve internet access in Nunavut

IQALUIT, Nunavut — Several projects are underway to improve internet access in Nunavut, which has long been slow, unreliable and costly for many residents. Quintillion and CanArctic Inuit Networks Inc. signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this year to build a subsea fibre optic cable network in the North American Arctic. Initially, they plan to […]

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Agency struggled to get pharma companies to engage in drug price reform: memo

OTTAWA — Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos was warned that pharmaceutical companies had steadfastly refused to engage on drug-price reforms before he urged an independent federal agency to pause those reforms in favour of more consultation, a 2021 memo shows. The NDP, which obtained the memo through access-to-information law and shared it with The Canadian Press, […]

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IRS takes steps to protect identity of workers in effort to deter personal threats

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an effort to deter threats aimed at IRS employees, the agency said Thursday it will start limiting workers’ personal identifying information on communications with taxpayers. The change begins next month. The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration said in a report this week that it was “concerned that taxpayers and […]

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Minnesota advances deepfakes bill to criminalize people sharing altered sexual, political content

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — In a nearly unanimous vote, Minnesota Senate lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday that would criminalize people who non-consensually share deepfake sexual images of others, and people who share deepfakes to hurt a political candidate or influence an election. Deepfakes are videos and images that have been digitally created or altered […]

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3 companies to pay $615,000 in NY attorney general investigation over faked net neutrality comments

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Three companies accused of falsifying millions of public comments to support the contentious 2017 federal repeal of net neutrality rules have agreed to pay $615,000 in penalties to New York and other states, New York’s attorney general said Wednesday. The penalties come after an investigation by the New York state Office […]

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Mass event will let hackers test limits of AI technology

No sooner did ChatGPT get unleashed than hackers started “jailbreaking” the artificial intelligence chatbot — trying to override its safeguards so it could blurt out something unhinged or obscene. But now its maker, OpenAI, and other major AI providers such as Google and Microsoft, are coordinating with the Biden administration to let thousands of hackers […]

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