National

National


N.W.T. announces latest case of private health information mishandled

YELLOWKNIFE — A privacy breach affecting people who stayed at a COVID-19 isolation centre is the latest in a long line of cases of health information being mishandled in the Northwest Territories. Late last week, the N.W.T. Department of Health and Social Services issued notice of the “low-risk” breach involving about 2,000 COVID-19 isolation forms, […]

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Sobeys parent company Empire says cyberattack expected to cost $25M after insurance

Sobeys parent company Empire Co. Ltd. has shared new details on a cyberattack that shut down its pharmacy services and other in-store functions last month. The security breach in early November left customers unable to fill prescriptions for four days, while other in-store functions like self-checkout machines, gift card use and the redemption of loyalty […]

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Will Indigenous sovereignty be on the agenda at COP15?

Msit No’kmaq, Wahkohtawin, Nindinawemaganidog — all loosely translate into the phrase “all my relations,” which is defined by a kinship between beings in the natural world and Mother Earth. It’s a phrase that asserts the symbiotic relationship between Indigenous nations and their lands. Now, as the world prepares to converge on Montreal for the United […]

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MP asks House ethics committee to put ‘unnecessarily rushed’ lobbying rule changes on hold

MPs recently moved to delay proposed changes to the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct that include reduced cooling-off periods for lobbyists doing political work and more stringent rules for gift-giving. “I felt that the process was unnecessarily rushed by the commissioner… the two weeks’ notice that we were given in the kind of dying weeks of […]

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Media shunning transparency law due to worsening delays, journalist says

OTTAWA — Reporters are abandoning the federal Access to Information Act as a research tool because turnaround times are terrible and getting worse, veteran journalist Dean Beeby told MPs studying the federal law. Beeby was among the media members and researchers who painted a sorry picture of the state of Canada’s access system Wednesday for a House […]

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Advocates criticize slow expansion of needle exchange program in federal prisons

OTTAWA — The federal prison needle exchange program is failing because of a poor rollout by the Correctional Service of Canada and a lack of improvement since it was introduced four years ago, health advocates say. Inmates at nine of the 43 federal prisons have had access to sterile equipment for drug use since the […]

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Scrambling for aircraft in N.S. mass shooting, RCMP told to ‘pound sand’: official

HALIFAX — Transcripts of calls between the RCMP and search and rescue officials in Halifax show an overall lack of understanding of what was required to have a military aircraft assist during the search for a gunman who killed 22 people in April 2020. Log and audio transcripts obtained by The Canadian Press under an access to information request […]

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The BC Services Card, and why you should be concerned about it

What is the BC Services Card? It’s an ID card that combines both the drivers license and the provincial health care card.   Is that all it does? Doesn’t sound too scary to me. Right now that is all it does. However, it is a key part of the ‘Government 2.0’ plan, which will link […]

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BC FIPA Makes Submission for the Customer Name and Address Information Consultation by Public Safety Canada

BC FIPA sent its submission for the Customer Name and Address Information Consultation to Public Safety Canada today. FIPA outlines three main concerns with the CNA proposal. [T]he proposals go beyond maintaining existing powers in order to cope with new technology … [and] would actually lower the threshold currently required to obtain Canadians’ personal information […]

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BC FIPA Comments on Proposal for Nat’l ID Card

BC FIPA presented its comments before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Public Safety on the proposal to create a national identity card. [A] national ID card would be: hugely expensive; just as subject to fraud, privacy abuses, and security breaches as current systems of identification; and not likely to be more effective in preventing […]

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THE LAWFUL ACCESS PROPOSALS: WHY CANADIANS SHOULD SAY “NO” TO EXPANDED ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE BY POLICE

Darrell Evans of BC FIPA gave a speech on Lawful Access to the Frontiers of Privacy and Security conference in Victoria today. Darrell highlighted some of the concerns that BC FIPA has with the direction that the Federal government is taking in the context of Lawful Access. FIPA’s view in a nutshell is that we […]

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FIPA comments on Lawful Access Consultation Document

FIPA has submitted comments on the federal government’s Lawful Access Consultation Document to the Department of Justice, Industry Canada, and the Solicitor General today. The federal government initiated consultations earlier this year and BC FIPA hosted two workshops on the Lawful Access proposals and received input from over 45 groups and individuals that have helped […]

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