Tausi Insider

A closed business in downtown Vancouver, on April 19, 2020. DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press Ottawa’s contentious use of Canadians’ mobility data early in the COVID-19 pandemic should serve as a warning the government needs to strengthen its proposed new private-sector privacy law, the Toronto internet-security and human-rights organization Citizen Lab says. The report adds to broad criticism from the privacy community of the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, which was introduced as part of Bill C-27 in June. A Citizen Lab report released Tuesday argues the federal government’s use of location data from Telus Corp. and BlueDot Inc. – which allowed Ottawa to track the movement of millions of devices to understand population movements in the era of rolling COVID-19 lockdowns – could create a slippery slope in which such data could restrict human rights. Even though that data about people’s movements had been stripped of identifying information, or “de-identified,” some data sets can be me...

The Biden administration on Friday said it was ordering Mastercard Inc MA-N to stop blocking the use of competing networks to process debit payments. Under a proposed order, Mastercard would have to start providing competing payment networks with the customer account information they need to process payments, the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces competition laws, said in a statement. “This is a victory for consumers and the merchants who rely on debit card payments to operate their businesses,” Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement. In a statement, Mastercard said it had reached an agreement with the commission on the routing of certain debit card transations, adding that it believes its current practices are “lawful” and that it provides options to merchants. “We will continue the work to update our processes to comply with the consent order and provide even greater choice,” the company said. https://www.tausiinsider.com/u-s-orde...

The Sherloc technology currently installed on the Mars Rover, in a handout photo. HO/The Canadian Press The same technology used to search for signs of ancient life on Mars could be key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the Canadian oil sands. At least that’s what members of the Pathways Alliance – an industry consortium of this country’s six largest oil sands companies – appear to believe. On Thursday, the group announced Impossible Sensing Energy, the Calgary-based affiliate of U.S. space exploration company Impossible Sensing, as the winner in an industry-sponsored global competition aimed at helping to accelerate the wide-scale use of steam-reducing technologies in oil sands operations. The company won with a proposal to use optical imaging technology, adapted from its Sherloc system currently installed on the Mars Rover, in an oil sands application. Just as optical imaging can be used to search for faint traces of potential carbon-based past life on Mars, it can also det...