Month: April 2019

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Pop star Rihanna urged fans on Thursday to delete Snapchat after the social media app ran an ad making fun of her 2009 beating at the hands of then boyfriend Chris Brown.

Shares of Snap Inc, the company that makes the app, were down 4.7 percent in trading on Thursday.

“SNAPCHAT I know you know you ain’t my fav app out there! But I’m just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess!,” the singer wrote on Instagram on Thursday.

“You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!,” she added, referring to domestic violence. “Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away.”

The “Wild Thoughts” singer, 30, was speaking out after Snapchat earlier this week apologized and took down an advert on its platform for a mobile video game called “Would You Rather!”

The ad showed pictures of Rihanna and Brown with the captions “Slap Rihanna” and “Punch Chris Brown.” Both the ad and the game were unaffiliated with Snapchat.

R&B singer Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting Rihanna in 2009 in an incident that made headlines around the world when a photo of her bruised face was released.

Snapchat on Thursday said the ad was “disgusting and never should have appeared on our service.”

“We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again,” the company said in a statement.

Rihanna’s comments were the latest bad press for Snapchat. Its shares lost about $1.5 billion in market value in February after social media celebrity Kylie Jenner, who has as many as 105 million Instagram followers, tweeted that she did not like the Snapchat site’s redesign.

Dozens of fans on Thursday tweeted that they were following Rihanna’s call to delete the Snapchat app.

“Rihanna let them KNOW. RIP SNAPCHAT,” tweeted a user with the Twitter handle @loveonthebrain.

“y’all thought kylie killed snapchat, but rihanna dragged it to the grave! RIP september 2011-march 2018,” tweeted a user called cozy spice.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant. Additional reporting by David Ingram and Gina Cherelus; Editing by Tom Brown)

OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is turning to its spy agency and high-tech cybersleuths to ensure the privacy rights of Canadians are being protected as revelations swirl about Facebook data being exploited for political gain.

And Scott Brison, the acting minister for democratic institutions, also said Tuesday he would be open to strengthening federal privacy laws even further to better defend those who share their information online.

Federal privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien, meanwhile, formally launched an investigation to determine whether any personal information of Canadians was affected by the alleged unauthorized access to Facebook user profiles.

Brison was responding to revelations by Canadian data expert Christopher Wylie, who is accusing data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica of improperly obtaining private data from Facebook users in order to help advance Donald Trump’s campaign efforts ahead of the U.S. election.

Policy-makers around the world are grappling with the implications following media reports that data collected by Facebook and other social-media companies is being harvested and used to influence elections.

Recent reports by The New York Times and The Observer of London say Trump’s 2016 campaign hired Cambridge Analytica, which crunched private information it inappropriately collected from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users.

Wylie, who worked for the federal Liberals about a decade ago, has said in media interviews that the company used the information to profile voters and has alleged the company took fake news to the next level. The company denies any wrongdoing.

Facebook’s alleged data seepage has created worries in Canada, where the country’s largest provinces are set to go to the polls this year and a federal election sits on the horizon for 2019.

“We’ve reached out as a department of democratic institutions to (the Communications Security Establishment) to ask them to do an analysis of these recent events and to consider other ways that we can further strengthen the protection of our democratic institutions,” Brison said.

“Social media platforms have a responsibility to protect the privacy and personal data of citizens, and to protect the integrity of our electoral system where they operate.”

Brison said he planned to meet with CSE and also the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the national domestic spy service, to consider the global environment and assess threats to the electoral system and the protection of personal information.

And while he said Canada already has strong privacy laws, Brison said he’d be open to making further changes if necessary.

The government has also contacted Facebook to find out if any Canadians were among those affected by the data breach and to call on the company to explain how it will ensure this kind of event doesn’t happen again, said a spokeswoman for Brison.

New Democrat MP Charlie Angus said Monday that if information giants like Facebook have the potential to distort the outcome of elections, they need to be held to account. He added that Facebook has a legal international responsibility to protect users’ information from bad actors looking to use it for nefarious purposes.

“Facebook seems to have a very cavalier attitude towards the protection of private information,” Angus said.

“What’s come out of the allegations against Cambridge Analytica was the ability to subvert Facebook to use the stories, the chats that people have, to create the perfect propaganda machine.”

Angus said the time has come for the creation of a global framework to deal with social-media companies that hold vast stores of personal information — and he wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to raise the issue when Canada hosts the G7 summit in June.

During question period Tuesday, Trudeau said he intends to do that and, indeed, has already had many discussions in the past with his G7 counterparts about privacy issues and democratic concerns related to social-media companies.

The international uproar triggered earlier this week by Wylie had already motivated privacy watchdog Therrien to reach out to Facebook to determine whether the personal information of Canadians was affected and to offer to assist an investigation into the matter already launched by the U.K. information commissioner’s office.

On Tuesday, Therrien said he’s opened a formal investigation, which will focus on whether Canadians were affected and whether Facebook has complied with Canada’s federal private sector privacy law — the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act which requires meaningful, informed consent for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information.

In a statement, Therrien noted that political parties are not covered by privacy laws even though they collect large amounts of highly personal information about citizens, such as details on how they vote, their age, religious and cultural backgrounds. The laws are “in urgent need of reform,” he said, reiterating his oft-repeated call for stronger privacy protection.

Political parties in Canada have also used tools offered by Facebook to target advertisements to voters, however there’s no evidence of anything similar to the allegations around Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook says users willingly gave their data

Facebook has denied the data collection was a breach because people knowingly provided their information. The company has said a University of Cambridge psychology professor accessed the information after he requested it from users who gave their consent when they chose to sign up for his test via a Facebook app.

On Monday, Facebook said it hired a digital forensics firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Cambridge Analytica to determine if the Facebook data the company collected still exists or if it’s been destroyed. Cambridge Analytica agreed to give the auditor complete access to its servers and systems, Facebook said.

Newspaper reports have said Facebook first learned of the breach more than two years ago, but didn’t disclose it until now.

Cambridge Analytica has “strongly denied” the allegations that it had improperly obtained Facebook data. It has also denied that the Facebook data was used by the Trump campaign.

The company has also insisted Wylie was a contractor, not a founder, as he has claimed. Wylie, a 28-year-old from British Columbia, left the firm in 2014.

Trump’s campaign has denied using the Cambridge Analytica’s data, saying it relied on the Republican National Committee for its information.

With files from the Associated Press

OTTAWA — The upcoming federal budget will include a five-week, use-it-or-lose-it incentive for new dads to take parental leave and share the responsibilities of raising their young child, The Canadian Press has learned.

In recent days, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has mused about just such an additional parental leave for the second parent.

The goal behind the measure — to be included in Tuesday’s budget — is to give parents more incentive to share child-rearing responsibilities so that new moms can more easily enter the workforce, said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the budget details have yet to be made public.

The government has been under increasing pressure from advocates to make further changes to Canada’s parental leave policies.

Budget expected to focus on gender equality

Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s budget is expected to have a strong focus on gender equality and on finding new ways to help more women enter the workforce — not only as a matter of fairness, but also as a way to bolster the entire economy.

A recently released briefing note prepared for Morneau said Canadian women with children are less involved in the labour market than their counterparts in many of the industrialized countries in the OECD.

In general, the participation rate of women in Canada’s job market is largely unchanged from where it was in the early 2000s, said the memo, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The idea of parental leave for a second parent would be similar to a policy in Quebec, which is the only province that pays for leave for new fathers. Quebec’s system provides up to five weeks of paid leave to new fathers and covers up to 70 per cent of their income.

The Liberals have heard from experts that the popular program in Quebec should be replicated at the federal level.

They’ve also been urged to raise the value of benefits paid out for parents who opt for an 18-month parental leave, and to provide low-income families with access to a six-month leave option with a higher rate of income replacement.

Some have also recommended making leaves available to people who aren’t considered a primary caregiver, such as a grandparent.

Earlier this week, Trudeau said making it easier for fathers to take time off to care for a newborn would help remove workforce barriers for women that are created by the expectation that they should take on the primary child-rearing role.

There is anecdotal evidence that women who are of child-bearing age or are pregnant are passed over for jobs or promotions, even though such actions are prohibited under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

‘Use-it-or-lose-it’ model

Trudeau, who was speaking at a forum in Ahmedabad, India, said his government would consider parental-leave changes, specifically “leave that can only be taken by the second parent, in most cases the father.” He said it would be “a use-it-or-lose-it” model.

The prime minister also suggested the leave could include, for instance, a partner in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender relationships.

“Whatever format you have, that path is removing some of the barriers and the obligations and the expectations that hold women back in the workforce, so there are a lot of things to do,” he said.

Trudeau’s government has been paying closer attention to parental leave options since some of their earlier changes received a cool welcome late last year.

Under rules that came into effect in December, new parents can spread 12 months of employment insurance benefits over 18 months, even though experts, labour and business groups expressed concern the program would only benefit families with higher incomes.

Last year’s budget pegged the cost of the measure at $152 million over five years and $27.5 million a year afterwards.

Fathers are increasingly taking leave

An analysis of recently released census data by the Vanier Institute of the Family found fathers are increasingly taking more time off after the birth of a child. In a report last month, the institute found 30 per cent of new fathers in 2016 reported they took, or intended to take, parental leave, up from three per cent in 2000.

Much of the national increase was due to Quebec’s program. In that province, 80 per cent of fathers claimed or planned to take parental leave in 2016, almost triple the 28 per cent recorded in 2005.

TORONTO — Police in Toronto say four people are facing charges after a mortgage fraud investigation lasting nearly five years.

Four men between the ages of 45 and 53 are due in court Tuesday on charges including fraud, conspiracy, forgery and money laundering.

Police allege the men, who are all from the Toronto area, took part in a “sophisticated and complex” scheme involving “several high-end properties.”

According to a police statement, mortgages were to be secured on properties, but were never registered and were misrepresented to the mortgage lenders; the men pretended certain individuals and companies were the property owners when in fact they were not, and; false title insurance certificates and property insurance certificates were introduced, “to convince the legitimacy of the transactions.”

Police estimate the value of the alleged fraud at $17 million. According to the police statement, officers with the force’s financial crimes unit began investigating the alleged fraud in the spring of 2013.

With a file from HuffPost Canada

Also On HuffPost:

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals will ask a group of advisers, led by Ontario’s former health minister, to explore options for a national program to cover the cost of prescription drugs and report back in 2019 — ensuring pharmacare becomes a key election campaign issue.

The measure forms a part of a trinity of major drug initiatives in Tuesday’s federal budget, the other two being a $231-million package of steps that aims to confront Canada’s escalating opioid crisis, including $150 million in emergency funding, and tax changes for cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.

Former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins will head up an advisory council to come up with options on how to create a national pharmacare program — a program that the parliamentary budget watchdog has warned could cost $19 billion a year.

The work will include consulting with provinces, territories and Indigenous groups about what drugs should be included, and the costs involved for “whatever model that we choose,” Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor said after the budget speech with Hoskins at her side.

Hoskins won’t have to deliver a final report until the spring of 2019, setting the stage for the Liberals to make pharmacare a centrepiece of the party’s election campaign and take a key talking point away from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

Following Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s speech, Singh seemed unfazed by the prospect, noting that the Liberals were only promising to examine the issue. He even dared the government to steal his party’s proposal and implement a national pharmacare plan.

“What the government is proposing is not a plan. This is a fantasy,” Singh said. “We want to introduce a program now.”

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said “Canadians should brace themselves” about what might come, because a former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister shouldn’t be trusted to craft “any kind of plan, never mind one in the health care field.”

In the meantime, the Liberals say they won’t apply new sales taxes to cannabis-based pharmaceutical products that can be obtained with a prescription.

Nor will taxes be applied to oils that contain low amounts of THC, the primary psychoactive element in marijuana, that are used by children with certain medical conditions.

But those medications represent a minority of those used by patients, according to one group. Canadians for Access to Medical Marijuana also questioned the wording behind a budget promise to consider retroactively reimbursing patients an unspecified amount for taxes already paid on cannabis-based pharmaceuticals.

“Exempting a small minority of patients does not address the affordability issue and implies some patients are more legitimate than others. Looking into a reimbursement program implies patients can afford to pay for their medicine in the first instance. They can’t,” director Jonathan Zaid said in a statement.

The Opposition Conservatives have chided the government for moving too fast on legal pot, suggesting there are outstanding public safety issues that need to be addressed.

The budget outlines $62.5 million over five years beginning this year for public education programs around cannabis use, and a further $20 million over five years for research by the Mental Health Commission of Canada and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.

The Liberals are also spending $80.5 million over five years starting this year to reduce tobacco use, particularly in Indigenous communities, and raising taxes on cigarettes by $1 per carton.

On opioids, provinces and territories will receive $150 million in emergency funding this year to deal with a crisis that is projected to claim more than 4,000 lives this year.

The balance of the $231.4 million will go towards public education campaigns, better access to public health data and new equipment and tools to allow border agents to better detect dangerous opioids like fentanyl before they enter the country.

With files from Geordon Omand and Lee Berthiaume