A federal watchdog is urging the RCMP to do a better job of assessing the privacy implications of commercial surveillance and monitoring services before using them. In a report released Thursday, privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne also recommends the Mounties be more transparent with Canadians about their collection of personal information from open-source intelligence gathering.  Dufresne […]

Government departments lacked adequate protections to fend off a “sophisticated and co-ordinated” cyberattack that compromised the sensitive information of tens of thousands of Canadians, the federal privacy watchdog has found. In a report tabled Thursday, privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne describes how the lapse at the Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada in […]

The loosely knit collective that vocally opposed COVID-19 health measures has morphed into a movement waging a broader fight against “perceived government overreach,” says a newly released assessment from Canada’s spy agency. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s analytical brief traces the evolution of the “Freedom” movement that began to emerge following the early 2022 protests […]

A front-line Alberta Mountie has been accused of accessing police record systems to help the Republic of Rwanda, RCMP said Tuesday.  The officer was arrested Saturday and the alleged breach involved records that were not top secret, the RCMP Federal Policing Integrated National Security Enforcement Team said in a news release.  “Upon learning of the […]

Allowing international students to work more than 20 hours a week could distract from their studies and undermine the objective of temporary foreign worker programs, public servants warned the federal government in 2022. The caution came in documents prepared for former immigration minister Sean Fraser as Ottawa looked at waiving the restriction on the number […]

Disregarded policies and a failure of management led to the development of the inordinately costly and much-maligned ArriveCan app, an investigation by Canada’s auditor general has found.  The federal government launched the app in April 2020 as a way to track health and contact information for people entering Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to […]

Despite worries artificial intelligence lacks empathy and could be coming to steal their jobs, a growing number of Canadians are turning to AI tools, a new poll suggests. Thirty per cent of Canadians now use artificial intelligence tools, the Leger poll suggested, up from 25 per cent a year ago, though two-thirds of respondents said […]

The Saskatchewan government says it’s changing how it procures hotels for those on social assistance after a motel owned by a legislature member raised rates when the province paid.  The Saskatchewan Party government says in a letter released Friday it will now get quotes from three hotels and direct people to the cheapest one while […]

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is pledging to fix the federal access-to-information system to speed up response times and release more information.  He made the commitment during a news conference in Vancouver on Thursday, where the Opposition leader announced a new revenue plan for First Nations alongside leaders in the region.  Successive reviews have concluded the […]

A top pioneer of artificial intelligence says the federal government must move urgently to regulate the technology, because its current trajectory poses major societal risks.  Yoshua Bengio, dubbed a “godfather” of AI, told members of Parliament today that Ottawa should put a law in place immediately, even if that legislation is not perfect.  The scientific […]

The federal government must move urgently to regulate artificial intelligence, says a top AI pioneer, warning the technology’s current trajectory poses major societal risks. Yoshua Bengio, dubbed a “godfather” of AI, told members of Parliament Monday that Ottawa should put a law in place immediately, even if that legislation is not perfect. The scientific director […]

Underage Canadian high school girls are targeted using AI to create fake explicit photos that spread online. Google searches bring up multiple free websites capable of “undressing” women in a matter of minutes. The world’s biggest pop star falls prey to a deepfake pornographer, with the images viewed tens of millions of times. This is […]