“Surveillance Society” – Page 5

The dawn of a digital super-regulator

Here comes the digital commission. It will make policy, take complaints, investigate abuses, review plans and regulate companies’ collection and use of personal information, how the data of children are scraped up into AI, social-media platforms, and more.

When it was first outlined in a bill to regulate social media last week, the Digital Safety Commission sounded like a body with some flexibility to grapple with some of the thorny, evolving problems of regulating big platforms – even if some worried its mandate to protect children and others came with extensive powers.

by Blazingcatfur•June 17, 2026June 17, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"

The Last Canadian Politician I’d Trust to Police the Internet

Justin Trudeau’s nine-year tenure as Canadian prime minister, which ended when his own Liberal caucus tossed him overboard in late 2024, can be divided thematically into two distinct periods.

During the mid-to-late 2010s, he presented himself as a sunny Canadian patriot. Then, following the COVID pandemic, the George Floyd protests, and the unmarked-graves social panic of 2021 (which Trudeau’s own government did much to spread), he sounded the exact opposite theme: Canada, he began telling Canadians, was in fact a deeply racist genocide state. He ordered his Liberal colleagues to implement a massive “Action Plan on Combatting Hate,” and introduced legislation that would give his government new powers to stamp out hate speech.

h/t FP

by Blazingcatfur•June 17, 2026June 16, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

A Social Media Ban for Minors Requires Data From Everyone

In debating a social media ban for minors, it appears we face a choice between two perceived harms. One is the reported damage that social media is doing to the mental health of children and adolescents. The other is the normalization of mass age verification systems—most likely involving biometrics—that would apply to everyone, not just minors. This carries real risks of privacy invasion, data breaches, and future mission creep.

That’s a feature not a bug.

by Blazingcatfur•June 16, 2026June 16, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"

Bill C-34 just Liberal censorship behind child-protection smokescreen

Once again, the Liberal government is attempting to restrict legal Internet content that they believe threatens “social stability” or is deemed “harmful” to Canada.

This week, the government introduced Bill C-34. The elements of the bill that grabbed the headlines were the ones to keep teenagers under the age of 16 off of social media platforms.

by Blazingcatfur•June 14, 2026June 14, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"

Canada vows to restrict social media for kids under 16. Teens say they’ll ‘always find a way’

Canadian high schoolers have mixed feelings about the Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34), introduced Wednesday by the federal government.

Key elements of the bill include establishing a new Digital Safety Commission and setting safety criteria and guidelines for social media and AI chatbots, but the element causing the most chatter is a ban on social accounts for kids under 16 (with the potential for exemption for services deemed who’ve put “adequate safeguards” in place).

Teens shared with CBC News their thoughts about a social media ban, while parents expressed guarded optimism moving forward. Here’s what they said this week.

Kids may not be able to read or write but that won’t stop them figuring out a way around the ban.

But kid’s safety isn’t the goal, state surveillance of everyone is.

by Blazingcatfur•June 14, 2026June 13, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"

Jamie Sarkonak: The Liberals’ Bill C-34 is a boomer plan to censor the internet

On Wednesday, the Liberals tabled Bill C-34, which would restrict minors from social media. That’s the headline pitch, but the bill goes much further, offering cabinet the power to ban children from online games, shut online entities out of Canada completely and order websites to censor content deemed “harmful” by the government. It’s a Great Canadian Firewall in the making.

by Blazingcatfur•June 13, 2026June 12, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Canada’s Bill C-34 Would Require ID or Face Scan to Use Social Media

Canada’s long-anticipated and dreaded Bill C-34 arrived on June 10 with the usual fanfare about protecting children.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

Marc Miller, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, tabled it.

Strip off the press release and what is left is a law that lets an appointed federal body order Canadians’ posts deleted across the country, decide which platforms can give an account to a 15-year-old, and tell AI chatbots to watch what you type.

Bill C-34 LPC Internet anonymity killer

by Blazingcatfur•June 12, 2026June 12, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society", Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Privacy commissioner says Grok deepfakes violated Canadian privacy law

OTTAWA — Canada’s privacy commissioner says sexual deepfakes generated by Elon Musk’s Grok artificial intelligence chatbot violated Canadian privacy law and were produced without adequate safeguards to protect Canadians.

Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne released the findings of an investigation Thursday into Grok’s AI image-generation tools, concluding the technology was launched without sufficient consideration of privacy risks and consent requirements.

by Blazingcatfur•June 12, 2026June 11, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"

Surveillance drones deployment on US’s Great Lakes raises data collection fears

The Great Lakes have rarely ever been considered a hotbed of illicit drug activity or center for illegal immigration.

But that hasn’t stopped US government agencies and the company behind surveillance sailing drones from treating the region as such. The US Coast Guard recently announced it has launched an armada of at least six sailing drones in the Great Lakes this summer in an attempt to, in part, “track illicit activity”.

At 33ft long, Saildrone Inc’s Voyager surveillance vessels can operate for 100 days at a time without needing servicing. The California-headquartered company claims the drones can operate for months without refueling and can “track vessels across wide maritime regions”.

by Blazingcatfur•June 9, 2026June 9, 2026•0•"AI - Artificial Intelligence", "Surveillance Society", USA

Carney government to ban social media for kids younger than 16, but will allow exemptions

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is expected to table its long-awaited legislation aimed at online safety this week, including a ban on social media platforms for minors.

A government official, speaking on the condition of background, confirmed plans to present a bill in the coming days, which will usher in a path to create a new regulator and target different types of harmful content online.

Better hope you keep your social credit scores high enough to merit “Online privileges”.

by Blazingcatfur•June 8, 2026June 8, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"

Christine Van Geyn: Privacy isn’t a crime, but Bill C-22 acts like it is

Parliament’s public safety committee is currently studying a mass surveillance bill developed by the Carney government. Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act, is being pilloried by civil liberties experts and the tech industry alike for the potential risk it poses to our privacy online. But legislation like this is only possible because of the profound lack of understanding so many of our elected leaders have about why privacy matters.

by Blazingcatfur•June 7, 2026June 6, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"

Retailers warn they’ll gouge the poor if surveillance pricing outlawed

OTTAWA — As the Carney government signals a crackdown on surveillance pricing, major retailers are lobbying for weaker guardrails they argue are necessary for data-based personalized discounts.

But critics argue that’s a talking point used to justify a “creepy” business practice that violates people’s privacy and discriminates against the consumers who ultimately pay a higher price.

by Blazingcatfur•June 6, 2026June 6, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society", Canada's Corporate Welfare Class

BARBER: Canada’s free speech crisis is no accident

Recent Canadian legislation increasingly aligns Canada with approaches taken by the European Union (EU). Canadian Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, passed third reading in the House of Commons on March 25. Both the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) have expressed significant concerns regarding the provisions of this bill.

by Blazingcatfur•May 30, 2026May 29, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society", Canada

When they abolish cash they abolish freedom

A VEXING experience awaits anyone attempting to use cash in Britain. One enters a café, a supermarket, or even a public event carrying legal tender only to discover that physical money is treated as if it were counterfeit currency, and those who still insist on using it are regarded as if they had arrived from another planet. No law has prohibited cash. No decree has abolished it. Yet through countless small refusals repeated across daily life, people learn that participation in the economy involves digital traceability or, more simply, an erosion of privacy.

by Blazingcatfur•May 30, 2026May 29, 2026•0•"Digital Currency", "Digital ID", "Surveillance Society"

Carney government abandons Trudeau-era effort to allow human rights complaints on online hate speech

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is abandoning efforts by his predecessor to reintroduce into the Canadian Human Rights Act the ability to bring forward complaints of online hate speech.

The controversial provision, known as section 13, was repealed under the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper, with efforts to revive it advanced by former prime minister Justin Trudeau as part of his government’s online harms agenda, which never passed.

by Blazingcatfur•May 28, 2026May 28, 2026•0•"Surveillance Society"