Your Access and Privacy Online News Summary for Saturday, May 9th. This week, we begin with the still-unfolding Alberta voter list breach — where nearly three million electors’ personal information may have been exposed through a searchable database tied to separatist organizing.  The latest developments now include investigations by Elections Alberta, the RCMP, and Alberta’s Privacy Commissioner — along […]

Victoria May 7, 2026 –  The wholesale violation of the privacy rights of millions of members of the Alberta electorate is, in part, a consequence of deliberate decisions made by government to exclude political parties from meaningful privacy laws.  This issue is not confined to Alberta, and while the actors at the centre of the egregious and harmful data breach are […]

ATLANTA (AP) — The federal government doesn’t have to return the 2020 election ballots from Georgia’s Fulton County that were seized by the FBI from a warehouse near Atlanta, a judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee’s decision came after lawyers for the county had argued that the ballots and other election materials, as […]

The U.S. government wants Google to unmask an anonymous Canadian critic of President Donald Trump, a move the American Civil Liberties Union says could have a chilling effect on free speech.  The Canadian citizen who posts anonymous online criticism of Trump has now launched a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, alleging the American […]

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is criticizing the Opposition NDP for not telling her about a massive privacy breach involving a website after the site was demonstrated during a meeting attended by one of her caucus staffers. In a fiery chamber debate Wednesday, Smith insisted the United Conservative Party caucus staffer didn’t realize a database shown […]

Foreign actors are increasingly generating articles, podcasts and social media posts riddled with disinformation about Alberta’s separatist movement, says a new report. The report from a team of researchers, published Wednesday by the Canadian monitoring platform DisinfoWatch, says the campaigns are coming out of Russia and the United States. It says social media influencers with […]

Federal and provincial watchdogs say OpenAI failed to respect Canadian privacy laws when training its artificial intelligence-powered ChatGPT chatbot. The conclusion came in a report released Wednesday following a joint investigation by federal privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne and his counterparts from British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec. ChatGPT, released in November 2022, is a popular conversation-style […]

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s chief of staff says a caucus staffer who attended a meeting about what was later found to be a massive data breach thought it was just about a new voter tool. Rob Anderson says in a social media post there’s no way the United Conservative Party caucus staffer could have known […]

CALHOUN, Ga. (AP) — Growing up in northwest Georgia, Stormy Bost lived her life in the water. During summers she plucked crawdads from the neighborhood creek and played in its cool depths, racing home for dinner to beat the setting sun. Waiting for her were pitchers of sweet tea, which her family brewed using tap […]

The County of Stettler council unanimously voiced support for a proposed dam and reservoir project east of Red Deer. The decision was passed at the Apr. 22 regular meeting of council. During the “council’s request for information” section of the agenda, Coun. James Nibourg requested council discuss recent media reports that the Government of Alberta […]

Crowsnest Pass council approved the municipality’s updated Fees, Rates and Charges Bylaw after reviewing utility rates, development penalties, safety code levies and public access to council meeting recordings. Council gave second and third reading to Bylaw 1255, 2026 during the April 28 regular council meeting. Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Kristin Colucci told council the municipality […]

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zambia is accusing the United States of tying a $2 billion deal for critical health assistance to access to the southern African nation’s rich mineral assets, and calling the outgoing U.S. ambassador’s allegations of corruption “mischievous” and “undiplomatic.” The comments by Zambia’s foreign affairs minister, Mulambo Haimbe, on Monday brought into […]