Personal Safety

Man charged with fourth violent carjacking since 2021 Canada’s soft-on-crime justice system sees man charged for fourth time in violent carjacking in just three years.

By Valerie / April 17, 2024 /

A man has been hit with numerous charges related to an April 12 carjacking — making it at least the fourth time he’s been charged with such since 2021, records show.

Toronto police announced they charged Mehkash Sohal, of Mississauga on Tuesday.

Police also seized illegal firearms from the three men arrested, one of whom was Sohal.

“The individuals committing these crimes are violent and not deterred at the thought of being arrested,” said the Acting Superintendent of Specialized Criminal Investigations, Susan

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Billions of Discord chats have been harvested, set to be sold online

By Roli / April 17, 2024 /

Discord is looking into potential violations of its terms of use

A publically-accessible website appears to be selling a colossal database of Discord chats to the highest bidder.

The site is called Spy.pet, and claims to have obtained more than four billion public messages, made by roughly 620 million users, logged into more than 14,000 servers.

On the surface, it would seem that there was no foul play, as the data was already public-facing, as Discord is essentially an IRC, meaning that with the right bots and automation, all of the information could be harvested.

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The next frontier in data privacy? Your brain

By Roli / April 17, 2024 /

Consumer neurotechnology is booming. You can buy a funky-looking headband for $500 on the internet if you want your own personal EEG to track your brain data. But before you click purchase, you might want to check out the device’s privacy policy.

These consumer devices are unlikely to include any protections or restrictions around how companies can employ or sell a user’s neural data, according to a new report from the Neurorights Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for the ethical development of neurotechnology.

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MP Laments Public Disorder

By Valerie / April 16, 2024 /

Cabinet’s “safe supply” drug policy is prompting public disorder, a Liberal MP yesterday told the Commons health committee. MP Doctor Marcus Powlowski (Thunder Bay-Rainy River, Ont.), an emergency room physician, warned colleagues: “There is certainly the perception by a lot of Canadians that a lot of downtown cores are basically out of control.”

“Certainly there is also the perception that around places like safe supply, safe injection sites, that things are worse, that there are people openly stoned in the street,” said MP Powlowski. “People are getting cardio pulmonary resuscitation performed on them in the street. There are needles around on the street. There is excrement on the street.”

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Teachers Against NDP Bill

By Valerie / April 16, 2024 /

The nation’s largest teachers unions yesterday opposed a New Democrat bill to outlaw corporal punishment of unruly children. Heidi Yetman, a mother of two sons and president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, said the bill would “put teachers at risk of being charged with assault.”

“This is our fear,” Yetman told the Commons justice committee. “The risk of unintended consequences that could make classrooms more unsafe is too great,” she added.

“Teachers need to be able to physically intervene in certain classroom situations,” said Yetman. “This is the reality.”

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Police Declare Sydney Church Stabbing a ‘Terrorist’ Attack

By Valerie / April 16, 2024 /

Police in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) have declared Monday’s stabbing at a Sydney church a religiously motivated “terrorist act” while declining to publicly state the faith of the alleged attacker.

The definition means counter-terrorism investigators – a joint team comprising NSW and federal police as well as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) – now have extraordinary powers under NSW laws to investigate the attack, the BBC reports.

They can also conduct searches to prevent any further suspected attacks.

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Patients paying surgeries covered by provincial health plans

By Roli / April 16, 2024 /

Health-care advocates say patients are unnecessarily paying thousands to private medical clinics for procedures covered by provincial insurance plans. They say many patients are falling for doctors engaging in ‘predatory upselling’ of services.

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Telehealth firm Cerebral fined $7 million over ‘careless’ privacy violations

By Roli / April 16, 2024 /

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is proposing a $7 million fine against Cerebral, a mental telehealth firm that it says not only was careless with patients’ data but actively shared it with third parties for advertising purposes. The company and its CEO, Kyle Robertson, are also accused of lying to customers about how their data is shared and of having a misleading cancellation policy.

The FTC notes that Cerebral shared the sensitive data “of nearly 3.2 million consumers” with third parties like LinkedIn, TikTok, and Snapchat through trackers on its website or apps — something the company admitted to last year. That apparently included details like home and email addresses, phone numbers, pharmacy and health insurance details, and medical history. Many of Cerebral’s ads were misleading, promoting ADHD treatment by, for instance, linking ADHD to obesity.

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Quadriplegic man chose assisted suicide after hospital stay ended with bed sores

By Valerie / April 15, 2024 /

Normand Meunier, a quadriplegic man in Quebec, sought assisted suicide after he developed bed sores due to a lack of specialized care at a hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Que.

According to Radio-Canada, who originally reported the story, Meunier’s arms and legs had been paralyzed since 2022 after experiencing a spinal cord injury.

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Bishop knife attacked in Australian Church Australian Bishop gets savagely knife attacked while delivering his sermon.

By Valerie / April 15, 2024 /

While delivering a sermon, a Bishop in an Australian Church has been attacked by a man with a knife.

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was delivering a sermon at Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, Sydney when a man was seen casually walking up to him as seen in the livestream footage.

The man then raised his arm and repeatedly attempted to stab Bishop Mar Mari with what appears to be a small knife. The congregation screamed in the background as they came to the bishop’s rescue.

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