The federal privacy watchdog is warning the Liberal government that it must not trade privacy rights for commercial gain as it strives to position Canada as a global leader in the digital, data-driven economy. In a letter to Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said the digital revolution is sparking debate on some of “the most fundamental questions of our time.” While there are high hopes attached to the power of digital technologies and big data to drive productivity, growth and competitiveness, he warned we’ve reached a “critical tipping point” in the adoption of these…
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More Companies Are Chipping Their Workers Like Pets | Engadget
The trend of blundering into the void of adopting new tech, damn the consequences, full speed ahead, continues this week. The Telegraph tells us about “a number of UK legal and financial firms” are in talks with a chip company to implant their employees with RFID microchips for security purposes. “One prospective client,” The Telegraph wrote, “which cannot be named, is a major financial services firm with “hundreds of thousands of employees.” Read full story here: More Companies Are Chipping Their Workers Like Pets | Engadget
Read MoreIn A Data Driven Tomorrow, Does Privacy Need To Survive the Future? | Digital Trends
“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” It was an argument we heard a lot in the years following Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s famous claim that privacy was no longer a social norm. A lot has changed in the eight years since. The web has evolved, new tools make it easier to protect our privacy online, and scandals with social networks and other online entities have made privacy itself a hot topic once again. Read full story here: In A Data Driven Tomorrow, Does Privacy Need To Survive the…
Read MoreNew Privacy Rules Will Force Canadian Companies To Disclose Data Breaches | CBC News
New privacy rules designed to better safeguard the personal data of Canadians and let them know when it has been breached kick in Thursday, but even security experts say they are far from perfect. The legislation, known as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (or PIPEDA) does a lot of things, but most importantly from a consumer’s perspective, it requires Canadian companies to alert their customers any time their personal information may have fallen into the wrong hands. Much of the law is aimed at preventing breaches in the first place, but…
Read MoreStatCan Scooped Up 15 Years Of Personal Financial Data From Canadian Credit Bureau – National | Globalnews.ca
As Statistics Canada plans to build a massive new personal information bank with the real-time financial transaction data of hundreds of thousands of Canadians, Global News has learned the agency has scooped up 15 years’ worth of credit rating information from a major international credit bureau which could include millions of Canadians. The data harvest was done without the consent or knowledge of those Canadians whose credit history was passed on Statistics Canada. The requests occurred in October 2017 and more recently in January 2018. Read full story here: StatCan Scooped Up…
Read MoreSmart Home Makers Hoard Your Data, But Won’t Say If The Police Come For It | TechCrunch
A decade ago, it was almost inconceivable that nearly every household item could be hooked up to the internet. These days, it’s near impossible to avoid a non-smart home gadget, and they’re vacuuming up a ton of new data that we’d never normally think about. Because the data is stored or accessible by the smart home tech makers, law enforcement and government agencies have increasingly sought out data from the companies to solve crimes. Read full story here: Smart Home Makers Hoard Your Data, But Won’t Say If The Police Come…
Read MoreHere’s How To See If You’re Among The 30 Million Compromised Facebook Users | Ars Technica
The attackers who carried out the mass hack that Facebook disclosed two weeks ago obtained user account data belonging to as many as 30 million users, the social network said on Friday. Some of that data—including phone numbers, email addresses, birth dates, searches, location check-ins, and the types of devices used to access the site—came from private accounts or was supposed to be restricted only to friends. Read full story here: Here’s How To See If You’re Among The 30 Million Compromised Facebook Users | Ars Technica
Read MoreGoogle+ To Shut Down After Coverup Of Data-Exposing Bug | TechCrunch
Google is about to have its Cambridge Analytica moment. A security bug allowed third-party developers to access Google+ user profile data since 2015 until Google discovered and patched it in March, but decided not to inform the world. When a user gave permission to an app to access their public profile data, the bug also let those developers pull their and their friends’ non-public profile fields. Indeed, 496,951 users’ full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status were potentially exposed, though Google says it…
Read MoreHow Roadside Speed Signs In The U.S. Could Be Tracking You Using Canadian-Made Tech | National Post
Canadian drivers who venture south of the border can soon expect to have their licence plate logged surreptitiously by the United States’ newest public surveillance tool: roadside speed signs. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency plans to expand its efforts to track licence plates around the country by embedding recognition technology inside digital displays that indicate the speed at which a vehicle is travelling, the news website Quartz reported this week. In addition to fulfilling their chief purpose — warning people who drive faster than the limit to slow down —…
Read MoreFacebook Says At Least 50 million Users Affected By Account Takeover Bug | TechCrunch
Facebook has said 50 million user accounts may be at risk after hackers exploited a security vulnerability on the site. The company said in a blog post Friday that it discovered the bug earlier in the week. The bug is part of the site’s “View As” feature that lets a user see their profile as someone else. Facebook has switched off the “View As” feature in the meantime while it investigates the bug further. The bug allowed hackers to obtain account access tokens, which are used to keep users logged in…
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