TORONTO — TikTok has been in the spotlight this week after the federal government announced it was banning the social media app from its devices days after Canadian privacy commissioners began investigating the company. The developments stem from renewed interest in ByteDance, the app’s parent company, being based in China, where laws allow the country […]

OTTAWA — Some people can’t see the forest for the trees. Others can’t see the hurricane for the lobsters. On Sept. 24, around 9 a.m. Atlantic time, a few hours after Hurricane Fiona had slowed slightly into a post-tropical cyclone and slammed into Nova Scotia, the federal Fisheries Department issued two preplanned posts on Twitter […]

OTTAWA — It has long been known that the RCMP Security Service took a keen interest in Roosevelt “Rosie” Douglas, a Black rights activist who attended school in Canada and would go on to be prime minister of Dominica. But recently released records reveal just how far the Mounties would go in the early 1970s […]

A ransomware attack compromised the data of current and former employees at Canada’s biggest bookstore chain, Indigo Books & Music Inc. says. In a statement on its website, Indigo said the breach on Feb. 8 left no indication that customers’ personal information, such as credit card numbers, had been accessed, but that “some employee data […]

TORONTO — At least one public policy expert says an investigation into TikTok launched by Canada’s Privacy Commissioner should prompt a similar look into other apps. Vass Bednar, the executive director of the Master of Public Policy in Digital Society at McMaster University, says issues around consent and data collection surround several TikTok rivals. While […]

TORONTO — An investigation into TikTok launched by Canada’s Privacy Commissioner this week is a symptom of growing unrest around data privacy, but also a sign of the extent of geopolitical tensions, academics say. The investigation revealed Thursday by the federal privacy watchdog and its counterparts in B.C., Alberta and Quebec is meant to delve […]

Shannon McPhail said she felt like the “world’s biggest schmuck” after reading an email from a senior official at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The official told her it was “impossible to confirm” how many living salmon eggs were in the path of the Coastal GasLink pipeline at a major river crossing. With wild salmon populations […]

OTTAWA — Canadians still do not have access to an assessment of the work done by a panel tasked with flagging incidents of foreign interference during the last election in 2021. The Critical Election Incident Public Protocol was created to monitor and report on threats to the 2019 election with a mandate to continue its […]

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says members of Parliament who put a political spin on foreign election interference are helping China undermine Canadians’ confidence in their democracy. He says playing “political games” to get a partisan advantage will undermine people’s trust in their institutions, and will only assist the efforts of countries like Russia […]

OTTAWA — Canada’s spy service warns that adversaries will turn to espionage and foreign interference tactics to target the country’s increasingly important artificial-intelligence sector. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says in a newly released analytical brief that countries including China and Russia can be expected to “pursue Canada’s AI through all available vectors” — from state-sponsored investment […]

OTTAWA — The federal Liberal government has yet to respond to a months-old invitation from Tokyo to have Canada rejoin a global environmental organization that regulates the timber trade. A July 2022 briefing note obtained through an access-to-information request shows that Japan has asked Ottawa to be part of the International Tropical Timber Organization. The group […]

OTTAWA — Some members of Parliament say they have no idea how to spot foreign interference, as Canada’s spy agency warns that all elected officials are targets for hostile states. “There is not clarity, quite frankly, around what MPs and their parties can do to protect themselves,” NDP MP Rachel Blaney told CSIS officials on […]