Chinada
Smile!
Canada’s national police force broke privacy law by using controversial facial recognition software that put innocent Canadians in a “24/7 police lineup,” the federal privacy commissioner says.
The RCMP conducted “hundreds” of searches of Clearview AI’s database of billions of photos scraped from the public internet, including social media sites, without consent. The company lets law enforcement and private business then match photos against that database.
It was illegal, according to privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien — both Clearview AI’s collection of images without consent, and the RCMP’s use of that database of unlawfully collected images.
Clearview’s practices amounted to “mass surveillance,” Therrien concluded, and the RCMP’s use of its database broke the Privacy Act.
“The data involved in (facial recognition technology) speaks to the very core of individual identity and as both commercial and government use of the technology expands, it raises important questions about the kind of society we want to live in,” Therrien concluded in his report.
The RCMP initially denied it used Clearview AI, both publicly and to the privacy commissioner, who is an independent officer of Parliament.
After a joint Toronto Star and BuzzFeed News investigation found the Mounties had paid for Clearview’s services, however, the force publicly admitted to using the controversial tools on a limited basis — predominantly for identifying victims of child sexual exploitation.
But Therrien’s office concluded that not only did the RCMP initially “erroneously” say it had not used Clearview, the force “did not satisfactorily account for the vast majority of the searches it made.”
He Admires Their Basic Dictatorship
@stevenchase — House of Commons has been notified by the law clerk that the minority Liberal government has refused to comply with an order of the House asking that all uncensored records on the firing of two scientists from Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Lab be provided to the Speaker.
What Bubble?
One Flu Out Of The Wuhan Nest
It’s like mentioning the pandemic Chinese lab origin theory has set some vast subterranean mechanism grinding, releasing a huge rolling boulder and triggering the closure of the exit doors.
What did we touch?
He Admires Their Basic Dictatorship
Prime Minister Spendy McBlackface gets taken to the woodshed.
Wuhan, Manitoba
Good work by the Globe & Mail;
Scientists working at Canada’s highest-security infectious-disease laboratory have been collaborating with Chinese military researchers to study and conduct experiments on deadly pathogens.
Seven scientists in the special pathogens unit at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg and Chinese military researchers have conducted experiments and co-authored six studies on infectious diseases such as Ebola, Lassa fever and Rift Valley fever. The publication dates of the studies range from early 2016 to early 2020.
The Globe and Mail has also learned that one of the Chinese researchers, Feihu Yan, from the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Academy of Military Medical Sciences, worked for a period of time at the Winnipeg lab, a Level 4 facility equipped to handle some of the world’s deadliest diseases. This researcher is credited as a co-author on all six of the papers. However, on two of them, he is listed as being affiliated with both the Winnipeg lab and the military medical academy.
Two of the Winnipeg lab scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, were fired in January of this year after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, as The Globe reported last week, recommended that their security clearances be removed on national-security grounds. CSIS had also been concerned about the nature of information Dr. Qiu might have passed on to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
[…]
Andy Ellis, former CSIS assistant director of operations, said it is “madness” for the Public Health Agency of Canada to be co-operating with the PLA, which in recent years has ramped up its recruitment of scientists and invested heavily in medical research as part of its strategy to modernize its military.
“It is ill-advised. It is the top lab in Canada,” Mr. Ellis said in an interview. “It is just incredible naiveté on their part.”
Mr. Ellis said it is also astounding that PHAC allowed a PLA scientist into the Winnipeg lab that requires the highest-level security clearance to gain entry.
“We won’t let a Canadian in unless we have done a deep background check, but we let [someone] in that we don’t know anything about. It doesn’t make sense,” he added.
[…]
James Giordano, a professor in the departments of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown University and a senior fellow in biowarfare and biosecurity at the U.S. Naval War College, said he assumes research conducted by any academic working in China is available for use by Beijing for military or defence purposes.
He said China is interested in developing new bioweapons, but also to furthering the capacity for what he calls “heroic rescue,” where Beijing is able to “ride in like a white knight” and offer other countries treatments or cures for diseases that threaten their population and increase its international influence.
Prof. Giordano said China is particularly interested in modifying pathogens to create a novel organism that is not listed – and therefore not regulated – in the international Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
It makes sense to those who admire China’s basic dictatorship. Perfect sense.
Remember those Eye of Sauron Meme’s?
You thought it was a joke They thought it was a great idea.
Calgary Sun: Province cancels plan to monitor campers with drones
Four days after a request for proposals (RFP) was posted by Alberta Environment and Parks seeking private contractors’ bids to operate a program that would provide surveillance on holidays and long weekends in the summer and fall, Environment Minister Jason Nixon said the plan has been shot down.
They’re not going to try this again? Rightttt…
Liberal Spyware
Hey kids we’ve got a cool new app to help keep you safe! Don’t worry it’s perfectly secure and totally safe and we will like totally respect your privacy.
He Admires Their Basic Dictatorship
Chinada: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is using Canadian airspace to hone their skills to kill Canadian allies.
He Admires His Basic Dictatorship
Lilley: If you have concerns with the Trudeau government’s bill to regulate the internet, then our fair-minded PM wants you to know that he thinks you are a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist.
Did We Pay For This Thing Too?
Out-of-control Chinese rocket expected to fall to Earth in the coming days.
He Admires His Basic Dictatorship
Via @ezralevant — For a convicted criminal — the only criminal I’m aware of who has ever been appointed to federal cabinet — Guilbeault is a terribly bad liar.
I don’t think he was expecting that.
A Winning Formula
In 2017, CBC published a tongue bath of China owned FeiHe International — A winning formula? China invests in Canadian dairy to help feed its baby boom
Donald Trump called Canada’s supply-managed dairy sector a “disgrace.”
Indeed, Canada’s strict system of production quotas, import restrictions and price and quality controls is a perennial target for free traders.
But guess who likes it? The biggest market Canada is wooing right now: China.
Supply management is a big reason why a Chinese corporation is investing an unprecedented $225 million in eastern Ontario. Feihe International, Inc. wants cows. Goats, too. Lots of them.
That’s because as China’s one-child policy phases out, it’s going to need a lot of baby formula.
Things got off to a shaky start.
On June 24 and July 18, 2019, Kingston Fire and Rescue fire inspector Richard Vasko inspected five houses owned by Realgoal Technology Inc. that were discovered to be housing 88 Chinese workers in total at the time.
Those workers were brought to Kingston from China to “complete a construction project for a production plant,” a report from the Ontario Fire Safety Commission stated.
While the Canada Royal Milk plant being constructed on Kingston’s west end was not mentioned in the report, equipment for the plant has been imported by Heilongjiang Realgoal Technology Co., a Chinese company with headquarters in British Columbia.
Inspectors found all five homes to have various infractions under the Ontario Fire Code, including a lack of emergency exits, unsafe cooking operations, and a lack of working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.
The homes — located on Ellesmeer Avenue, Cooke Crescent and Crossfield Avenue — were housing groups of 23, 16, nine, 26 and 14 workers, some in bunkbeds, on all levels of the dwellings, which were built as two- to four-bedroom homes.
At a home on Crossfield Avenue, bed frames were also discovered in the garage.
Some homes were found to be lacking emergency lighting and exit signs. No fire alarm systems were installed in the homes with greater than 14 persons residing in them.
Cooking arrangements in one of the homes was a propane-powered wok fuelled by an unsecured 100-pound propane cylinder in the kitchen. Other cylinders were stored insecurely on the property, the report said.
How it turned out: Workers feared for safety at Ontario baby formula plant
When a Chinese dairy processor invested $332 million to build a baby formula plant in Kingston, Ont., it promised to create hundreds of jobs in Eastern Ontario.
Now, some of the people who took those jobs at Feihe International’s Canadian subsidiary are warning the workplace isn’t safe — and they’re afraid someone is going to get killed.
“They didn’t care about you. They didn’t care about your family,” one worker said. “We were told constantly, ‘This is the way they do things in China.’ […]
When, for example, Ontario regulations required workers to follow a certain process for milk pasteurization and something went wrong, he said, workers were told by supervisors to simply skip that process.
Earlier this month, a dumping incident at the plant’s wastewater treatment facility smelled so foul it alarmed local residents.
The issues went beyond equipment malfunctions and wasted milk. People got hurt.
Jacques Laforge, CEO of Canadian Dairy Commission at that time is now employed by FeiHe . So there’s that.
No Country for Young Men
Under the younger Trudeau’s administrations, a perfect storm of destabilizing factors has struck the country. Rampant immigration from third-world nations, predominantly Muslim, has led to sporadic terror attacks, ghettoization, and a depletion of public funds. A punitive and unnecessary carbon tax looks likely to eviscerate the farming community, hamstring commerce and industry, and severely impact ordinary households. Radical feminism has taken root not only in public schools and universities but in the governing cabinet as well, leading to decisions based on ideology rather than pragmatism.
Somebody, get us out of this place.
(h/t Larry)
Chinada
Via @EzraLevant – This is pretty incredible. This is a Canadian Senator appointed by Justin Trudeau. But he is tweeting, in Chinese, a threat to Canada and the two Canadian hostages held by the Chinese Communist Party.
He Admires Their Basic Dictatorship
Trudeau government threatens Halifax Security Forum over proposed Taiwan award
The organizers of one of the world’s most prestigious defense gatherings are in the midst of an uncomfortable international standoff between the Canadian government and China over a major award they had planned to give to the president of Taiwan.
The standstill, which is ongoing and has not been previously reported, has created tension between the Halifax International Security Forum and the Canadian government, which is a major sponsor of the forum.
Late last year, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the forum’s organizers decided to give its John McCain Prize for Leadership in Public Service to Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan. Cindy McCain, a member of the forum’s board of directors, greenlit the decision to honor Tsai with the prize named after her late husband.
It would have been the third time the HFX presented the McCain award. The first, in 2018, went to the people of Lesbos, Greece, for their efforts to save refugees; the second, in 2019, went to the citizen protesters in Hong Kong. HFX planned to give the third to Taiwan’s president for standing strong against China’s relentless pressure.
When Canadian officials learned of the forum’s plans, they made it clear that if organizers gave the honor to Tsai, the Canadian government would pull support — and funding — from HFX.
Update: Trudeau Kowtows To China
h/t Craig
Come On Down!
There’s only a little kidnapping by the state. Don’t make a fuss, just get on the bus.
China’s ambassador in Ottawa says more Canadians should visit the People’s Republic, promising the “vast majority” shouldn’t worry about being kidnapped by police. “China is not a police state,” said Ambassador Cong Peiwu: “It’s nothing like that. If you walk on the Chinese streets, it’s quite safe.”
From Blacklocks
But don’t you worry the worst that can happen is that you’ll wind up in a Chinese musical.
Wuhan Flu: Government Facilities
“Trudeau always seemed like a cheerful idiot. Who knew he was Mussolini?”