Every breach of children’s privacy is severe and has the potential to cause lasting harms. Since the watershed year 2016 when many Canadian boards of education were financially incentivised to make the irreversible leap from on-premise information systems to cloud edtech ‘learning management systems’, a massive brain drain simultaneously took…

As the team from Canada’s only cybersafety foundation briefed me on disinformation campaigns from the current conflict in the Middle East, it was immediately evident that asymmetric information warfare is being waged with increased sophistication in cyberspace. Surprisingly, while Hamas and Israel engage in brutal military battles, Western and European…

For the third annual World Password Day Survey, Bitwarden polled over 2,000 internet users globally (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, and Japan) on their password security practices. Here are some of findings: • 19% of respondents said they used “password” as their password • 52% use easily…

Ever wonder how advertisers see you as you surf the Web? Here are some examples of actual labels automatically affixed to Internet users: > “Defund Police Persuadables” > “Attitude: I generally get a raw deal out of life” > “Money driven” > “Affluent Ethnic Couples” > “Heavy buyer of condoms” > “Tech addict” > “Menstrual cramps” > “Elite…

Canada’s largest energy company said it “believes” the information it lost to hackers was limited to customers’ names and the #information they “may have provided” since joining the program. Ah, the power of belief! Well, let’s just have a look, shall we? A quick search reveals that the Petro-Points program…

Big, positive news for public education and parents: “This order makes clear that ed tech providers cannot outsource compliance responsibilities to schools, or force students to choose between their #privacy and #education”. Kudos to the Federal Trade Commission for standing up for chidren’s right to privacy and offering much-needed guidance…

According to the Federal Trade Commission, “Amazon’s history of misleading parents, keeping children’s recordings indefinitely, and flouting parents’ deletion requests violated COPPA and sacrificed privacy for profits”. Click to read the referenced article: Amazon to pay over $30 million to settle claims Ring, Alexa invaded user privacy : NPR So how did “the everything store” get away with a “disregard for #privacy and security that exposed consumers to #spying and harassment” by…

Nova Scotia is advising over 100,000 victims that their #personalinformation was taken as a result of a “global #cybersecurity issue”, #Ontario recently informed some 360,000 residents about the #breach of their private data, and other provinces are facing similar challenges of #incident detection, impact assessment and #fraud prevention. …

Why would anyone want to gain access to your company’s ChatGPT accounts? Because they know that in the absence of regulation and policy enforcement, users are likely to enter sensitive #information, intellectual property details, #personal data and strategically important information. #ChatGPT saves this data in chat logs by default, giving thieves…