Access and Privacy Online

Access and Privacy Online


Lost RCMP memory key with informant details was offered for sale by criminals: report

The federal privacy watchdog says the RCMP lost a memory key containing personal information about victims, witnesses and informants, and later learned it was being offered for sale by criminals. A detailed report from the office of privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne reveals the RCMP told the watchdog about the breach in March 2022, prompting a […]

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U.S. ambassador says Canadians facing device searches, detainment ‘not a pattern’

The American ambassador to Canada is pushing back on Ottawa’s travel advice, saying his country doesn’t search phones at the border and arguing some Americans travelling here are having a tough time. “We welcome Canadians to come in and invest, to spend their hard-earned Canadian dollars at U.S. businesses,” U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra told The […]

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Supreme Court allows DOGE team to access Social Security systems with data on millions of Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration two victories Friday in cases involving the Department of Government Efficiency, including giving it access to Social Security systems containing personal data on millions of Americans. The justices also separately reined in orders seeking transparency at DOGE, the team once led by billionaire Elon Musk. […]

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How Trump’s pick for surgeon general uses her big online following to make money

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next U.S. surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation’s medical, health and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans’ health. Yet as Dr. Casey Means has criticized scientists, medical schools and regulators […]

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Liberal border security bill poses serious threat to rights, coalition warns

A national coalition of civil society groups says the Liberal government’s new border security bill poses a serious risk to liberties and human rights. The Ottawa-based International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group is calling on the government to withdraw the bill and replace it with more targeted legislation on specific border concerns. The coalition brings together […]

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Ritchot council talks cost of cyberbreach and emergency response measures

on their agenda. Included was a report by CAO Shane Ray on costs incurred by the RM in recent weeks. One of them referred to a $127,000 cheque ready to be issued to a company for their work on a cyberbreach at the RM office last year. “This is one of the companies that’s been […]

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Takeaways from AP’s report on the business interests of Trump’s surgeon general pick

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s pick to be U.S. surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation’s medical and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans’ health. Yet as Dr. Casey Means has criticized scientists, medical schools and regulators for taking money […]

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Judge weighs government’s request to unseal records of FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge is weighing a request from the Trump administration to unseal records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. — files that the civil rights leader’s relatives want to keep under wraps in the national archives. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., said during a hearing […]

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Reddit sues AI company Anthropic for allegedly ‘scraping’ user comments to train chatbot Claude

Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Anthropic on Wednesday, alleging that it is illegally “scraping” the comments of millions of Reddit users to train its chatbot Claude. Reddit claims that Anthropic has used automated bots to access Reddit’s content despite being asked not to do so, and “intentionally trained on the personal […]

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Immigration minister defends border bill’s restrictions on asylum claims

Safeguards have been written into the government’s border bill to ensure civil rights and due process are upheld in proposed immigration regulations, Immigration Minister Lena Diab said Wednesday. Critics and advocacy groups are calling the wide-ranging border security legislation a threat to civil liberties in the immigration and asylum system. One proposed change in the […]

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NS Power CEO, staff grilled over breach that allowed theft of 280,000 customers’ data

Provincial politicians took aim at Nova Scotia Power during a legislative committee meeting this morning, saying the utility owes ratepayers answers after a cybersecurity breach gave thieves access to data belonging to 280,000 customers. The utility’s CEO and other staff were grilled by the public accounts committee about how the breach happened and what the […]

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Federal bill includes new security powers to tighten border, immigration system

Proposed federal legislation would give authorities new powers to search mail, make it easier for officials to pause or cancel immigration applications and expand the Canadian Coast Guard’s role to include security activities. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree introduced the Strong Borders Act in the House of Commons on Tuesday. The government says the wide-ranging, […]

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