That COVID-19 tracking app you were urged to download? It didn’t deliver — ‘far from it’

That COVID-19 tracking app you were urged to download? It didn’t deliver — ‘far from it’

The federal government spent $20 million on a smartphone application designed to alert users to possible COVID-19 exposures, and new data obtained by The Canadian Press shows the results didn’t live up to expectations.

Ottawa’s COVID Alert app, introduced late last year in several provinces, uses Bluetooth to detect proximity to others who have installed the app on their mobile devices, and it notifies users when they’ve been in close contact with a person who has tested positive for COVID-19.

No one trusted this app, and rightly so.

Share

Canada to Fine Citizens for Facebook Posts?

For western nations like the United States and Canada, free speech has always been one of our fundamental founding principles and one that has time and time again set us apart as a place where true freedom is valued and appreciated. But, as you know, the political left has increasingly pushed the limits of this, moving towards near authoritarian ways in the US.

Thankfully, here in the US, we have been able to keep that move at bay for the most part.

Canada, on the other hand, has not been so lucky as of late.

Share

Liberal hate speech bill will put a chill on free speech

To compare much of social media to a swamp, a sewer, a cesspool or an old-fashioned outhouse is to miss the point.

There is without question an offputting stink to all those entities, enough to discourage people from hanging around any longer than essential. But mere nature lacks something at which online communications excel: the malevolence, the cruelty, the bitterness, the truthlessness and the all-encompassing anger that typifies so much of what gets channelled into cyber discourse in the guise of discussion, commentary, debate, opinion or simple free speech.

Share

Tucker and the NSA: Why Are You Surprised?

Carlson’s revelations about being spied on by the Biden administration are part of a well-established pattern of government abuse.

I’ll allow that this headline might miss the mark with many of our more regular readers, who are anything but surprised at the revelations coming out of Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show this week.

But for the rest of you, it might be just what you needed to see.

Share

NSA Response To Carlson Sparks Numerous Reactions: ‘This Is Either Poorly Drafted Or Something Worse’

The National Security Agency’s response to allegations that it is spying on Fox News host Tucker Carlson sparked a wide range of responses on Tuesday night with most people falling into one of two camps: Either they noted the carefully crafted way that the statement was constructed or they used the statement to claim that Carlson was lying.

Share

Section 13 Rises from the Dead

The “free world” barely pretends to favor free speech these days. The triggered interns who infest the big publishing houses openly demand their employers pulp the latest manuscripts from J K Rowling and Jordan Peterson. The totalitarian wankers of the British police sit around the station all day monitoring Twitter for transphobic quips, which is far more congenial labor than getting off their flabby arses and catching criminals. The woke billionaires of social media boast openly of their success at “fortifying” the US election by memory-holing unhelpful content.

Share

MALCOLM: Bill C-10 was just the tip of the iceberg

MALCOLM: Bill C-10 was just the tip of the iceberg

“Midnight Madness: as Canadians slept, the Liberals, Bloc and NDP combined to pass Bill C-10.”

That is how Canadian law professor and the country’s foremost expert on law and technology, Michael Geist, described Tuesday evening’s House of Commons shenanigans that allowed the Trudeau government to ram through its controversial internet censorship law.

Share

TikTok, tick-tock

Chinese-owned TikTok recently updated its privacy policy in the United States.  The immensely popular social video-sharing app, known in China as Douyin, blithely gave itself permission to collect biometric data of U.S. users, including faceprints and voiceprints.  The networking service is owned by Bytedance, a Chinese company headquartered in Beijing and founded in 2012.

Share

I spy: are smart doorbells creating a global surveillance network?

I spy: are smart doorbells creating a global surveillance network?

I have got a new doorbell. It’s brilliant. It should be; it cost £89. It’s a Ring video doorbell; you’ll have seen them around. There are others available, made by other companies, with other four-letter names such as Nest and Arlo. When someone rings my doorbell, I’m alerted on my smartphone. I can see who is there, and speak to them.

My phone is ringing! C major first inversion chord, arpeggiated, repeated, for the musically trained – you’ll recognise it if you’ve heard it. It’s a delivery. Amazon, as it happens; Amazon acquired Ring in 2018, reportedly for more than $1bn.

“Hi, Amazon guy, I’m not in… I mean, I’m upstairs.” I’m not, but I don’t want him – or anyone else – to know that. “Could you leave it behind the bins, please?”

Share

Liberals introduce bill to ̷f̷i̷g̷h̷t̷ ̷o̷n̷l̷i̷n̷e̷ ̷h̷a̷t̷e̷ criminalize dissent with Criminal Code amendments

The Liberals have introduced a bill to tackle online hate by amending Canada’s Criminal Code and Canadian Human Rights Act.

Bill C-36 would allow a person to appear before a provincial court, with the Attorney General’s consent, if the person fears that another will commit an offence “motivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor.”


It’s Section 13 with a Hatey Face.

If passed then pointing out that sectarian violence, honour killings, the murder of apostates and gays along with all the other ways Islam enriches the world will make you a criminal.

Some, who should know better, believe this law will prevent or at least punish those who vilify Israel as an apartheid state etc.

The gatekeepers won’t allow that to happen. Instead this dangerous legislation will be used to enforce sharia law. Dissenting opinions deemed objectionable such as criticism of multiculturalism and immigration policy will be silenced based on the whims of the anointed.

Your right to free speech will be the collateral damage of this abusive law and make no mistake that was the intention all along.

We are fucked no?

Share

‘Every step we take’ could be monitored and analysed if facial recognition tech isn’t reined in, UK data watchdog warns

The head of the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has raised alarm over the potential abuses of facial recognition software, after several investigations found that the technology was not being properly deployed.

UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham noted in a blog post published on Friday that facial recognition technology can be harnessed to make our lives more efficient and secure, but said there was a clear danger that it could be misused.

Live facial recognition (LFR) technology capable of scanning people’s faces in real time as they walk down the street or enter a shop can be used “inappropriately, excessively or even recklessly,” the head of the UK data watchdog said, noting that there could be “significant” consequences if sensitive personal data were collected on a mass scale without people even knowing they were being monitored.

A shack in the deep woods is looking better every day.

Share