An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: Underwater quantum links are possible across 30 meters (100 feet) of turbulent water, scientists have shown. Such findings could help to one day secure quantum communications for submarines. [...] In the new study, researchers experimented with quantum communications in a "flume tank," a water tank in which scientists can generate waves to mimic the ocean. They also tried two different strategies for quantum communications -- one involving just the polarization of the light, and the other incorporating the polarization and the orbital angular momentum of the signals -- to analyze how quantum communication protocols might differ in maximum distances and data transfer rates.

The researchers achieved quantum communication at up to 72 kilobits per second across up to 30 meters of turbulent water, the longest distance yet reported for such links. Although turbulence did result in significant wandering and distortion of light signals, those error rates didn't prevent quantum links from successfully being established with either communication protocol. Unexpectedly, the researchers found they could keep quantum communication going even while the transmitter moved down the flume tank. "We had expected that this would not be possible without beam-tracking technology," says Felix Hufnagel, a lead author and quantum physicist at the University of Ottawa in Canada. After the scientists analyzed their data, they suggested the maximum distance for secure quantum communications might actually be 80 meters in turbulent water, although this would depend on factors such as the efficiency of the detectors used. Improving such factors might significantly boost the maximum communications distance, they say. The findings have been detailed in a preprint article on April 9.

SpaceX has launched another big batch of Starlink satellites, the low Earth orbit spacecraft that will provide connectivity for its globe-spanning high-bandwidth broadband internet network. This brings the total number of Starlink satellites on orbit to 422, though the company plans to de-orbit two of those (the first two prototypes launched) shortly. From a report: Already, SpaceX is the largest private satellite operator in existence -- by a wide and growing margin. It's also managed to keep up the frequent pace of its Starlink launches despite the global COVID-19 crisis, with its last launch taking place March 18. In total, it has flown four such missions since the start of the year, just four months into 2020. The company has good reason to want to keep up that aggressive pace: Each launch brings it closer to the eventual launch of the Starlink broadband service that the satellites will provide the network backbone for. SpaceX wants that network to be live with coverage available in Canada and the Northern U.S. by sometime later this year, and because of the way its approach works, with small satellites orbiting much closer to Earth than traditional geostationary internet satellites and handing off the connection to one another as they pass the coverage area, they need a whole lot of them to provide stable, reliable, low-latency connections for consumers and businesses.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: The Milton R. Young Station, close to the town of Center in North Dakota, is as unremarkable as coal-fired power plants come. But if its owner Minnkota Power Cooperative has its way, the plant could soon be famous the world over. The Grand Forks-based electric cooperative has launched Project Tundra, an initiative to build the largest power plant-based carbon capture facility in the world, with construction commencing as early as 2022. If Minnkota Power raises the US $1 billion the project requires, it plans to retrofit the station with technology the cooperative claims will capture more than 90 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from the plant's larger generator, a 455-megawatt unit. The effect will be the equivalent of taking 600,000 gasoline-fueled cars off the road.

To sequester CO2 from the Young station, Project Tundra will make use of technology similar to that employed at the only two other existing carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities operating at power plants in the world -- Petra Nova in Texas and Boundary Dam in Saskatchewan, Canada. The CO2-removal process begins by passing the flue gas through a scrubber to remove impurities and lower its temperature. The gas then enters an absorber, which contains a liquid-based amine solution that binds to CO2. Heat is applied to release the gas from the amines and the extracted CO2 is then compressed. Project Tundra plans to pump the liquid CO2 into sandstone rocks that lie just over a mile beneath the nearby lignite coal mine, where it will be stored permanently.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A Facebook spokesperson told Motherboard over the weekend that the social network would allow protest events as long as they do not fall afoul of government guidance on social distancing, but will ban ones that do. "Unless the government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook," the spokesperson wrote in an email. "For this same reason, events that defy government's guidance on social distance aren't allowed on Facebook. "

According to a Facebook statement to the Washington Post, the company has removed protest events both in New Jersey and California. Facebook typically follows the law in whatever jurisdiction it happens to be operating within, which has led to numerous problems with moderating a global platform, but this has always been subject to change based on the social network's whims and priorities. For example, when the company was found to have violated the law in Canada, it simply said that it did not agree, and nothing happened. Now that Facebook appears to be deferring to government "guidance" during an unparalleled crisis with many fractured viewpoints, coronavirus is becoming yet another quagmire for the company.

RadioShack's former CEO tells Canada's National Post newspaper the surprising story of what happened after he left the company in 2004: When it came, rather than being crestfallen, he felt liberated, and free to pursue an "itch" that he had always felt the need to scratch. So he applied to medical school at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario... "I don't miss being a CEO one bit," Levy says. "I enjoyed it immensely, when I was doing it. But do I enjoy what I am doing now? The answer is, immensely."

Brian Levy, MD, was talking about his unusual career path with a reporter, via a socially-distanced phone call, on an April afternoon after wrapping up an overnight shift in the Emergency Department at Brampton Civic Hospital, northwest of Toronto. Brampton Civic is among the busiest emergency departments in Canada. The former CEO initially fancied becoming a psychiatrist, given all his years managing people, but he realized early on in medical school that he was more of a generalist, not to mention a Type-A, adrenaline-junky.

"Emergency medicine is a perfect fit for my personality," he says.
The article notes Levy's department "is eerily quiet, preparing for an expected surge in COVID-19 cases" -- and that in his spare time he's still an electronics geek.

"I am just one of those people who was very fortunate, where things worked out, and where I could do not just do one thing I really enjoyed in life, but two."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A padlock -- whether it uses a combination, a key, or "smart" tech -- has exactly one job: to keep your stuff safe so other people can't get it. Tapplock, Inc., based in Canada, produces such a product. The company's locks unlock with a fingerprint or an app connected by Bluetooth to your phone. Unfortunately, the Federal Trade Commission said, the locks are full of both digital and physical vulnerabilities that leave users' stuff, and data, at risk. The FTC's complaint (PDF) against Tapplock, released Monday, basically alleges that the company misrepresented itself, because it marketed its products as secure and tested when they were neither. A product -- any product -- simply being kind of crappy doesn't necessarily fall under the FTC's purview. Saying untrue things about your product in your advertisement or privacy policy, however, will make the commission very unhappy with you indeed.

The lock may be built with "7mm reinforced stainless steel shackles, strengthened by double-layered lock design with anti-shim and anti-pry technologies," as Tapplock's website promises, but according to the FTC, perhaps it should have considered anti-screwdriver technologies. As it turns out, a researcher was able to unlock the lock "within a matter of seconds" by unscrewing the back panel. Oops. The complaint also pointed to several "reasonably foreseeable" software vulnerabilities that the FTC alleges Tapplock could have avoided if the company "had implemented simple, low-cost steps."

One vulnerability security researchers identified allowed a user to bypass the account authentication process entirely in order to gain full access to the account of literally any Tapplock user, including their personal information. And how could this happen? "A researcher who logged in with a valid user credential could then access another user's account without being re-directed back to the login page, thereby allowing the researcher to circumvent Respondent's authentication procedures altogether," the complaint explains. A second vulnerability allowed researchers the ability to access and unlock any lock they could get close enough to with a working Bluetooth connection. That's because Tapplock "failed to encrypt the Bluetooth communication between the lock and the app," leaving the data wide open for the researchers to discover and replicate. The third vulnerability outlined in the complaint also has to do with a failure to secure communication data. That app that allows "unlimited" connections? The primary owner can of course add and revoke authorized users from the lock. But someone whose access was revoked could still access the lock because the vulnerability allowed for sniffing out the relevant data packets. As part of the settlement, the FTC is requiring Tapplock to create a security program for its products. "That program is required to include training for employees; timely disclosure of 'covered incidents,' including both loss of personal information and also unauthorized access to systems; actual penetration testing of the network; and several other elements, including annual review," reports Ars Technica.

Freshly Exhumed shares a report from CBC.ca: "[Autoclaving] is like a pressure cooker -- basically you enclose items into a chamber, you lock down the chamber, you heat it up and actually increase the pressure inside the chamber," Dr. Anand Kumar, a professor of medicine at the University of Manitoba, said. The machines heat up to about 121 C for 15 minutes, killing bacteria and viruses. "It'll sterilize anything." The assumption has been that if you tried this on an N95 mask they would degrade rapidly. We thought we'd give it a try anyway," Kumar said. "And actually what we found is while it does degrade some [types of] masks, there's a certain group of masks that are made of kind of a fabric-type material, rather than being moulded closely to the face they're called pleated [masks]," he said. Kumar said the pleated fabric masks can be cycled through an autoclaving machine 10 times and come out as good as before.

"The reason this is really important is that autoclaves are available at literally every established hospital in the world. There is probably no hospital in the world that doesn't have an autoclave machine," Kumar said. "So everybody can use this for these particular types of masks and these particular types of masks are probably the most common type of N95 mask, so we're really pleased." Kumar said the technique could be put into use at any hospital at any time. "It's a technology that's available and ready to go right now."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: D-Wave today made its quantum computers available for free to researchers and developers working on responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis. D-Wave partners and customers Cineca, Denso, Forschungszentrum Julich, Kyocera, MDR, Menten AI, NEC, OTI Lumionics, QAR Lab at LMU Munich, Sigma-i, Tohoku University, and Volkswagen are also offering to help. They will provide access to their engineering teams with expertise on how to use quantum computers, formulate problems, and develop solutions.

Quantum computing leverages qubits to perform computations that would be much more difficult, or simply not feasible, for a classical computer. Based in Burnaby, Canada, D-Wave was the first company to sell commercial quantum computers, which are built to use quantum annealing. D-Wave says the move to make access free is a response to a cross-industry request from the Canadian government for solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Free and unlimited commercial contract-level access to D-Wave's quantum computers is available in 35 countries across North America, Europe, and Asia via Leap, the company's quantum cloud service. Just last month, D-Wave debuted Leap 2, which includes a hybrid solver service and solves problems of up to 10,000 variables.

sixoh1 shared this story from the Wall Street Journal: Home internet and wireless connectivity in the U.S. have largely withstood unprecedented demands as more Americans work and learn remotely. Broadband and wireless service providers say traffic has jumped in residential areas at times of the day when families would typically head to offices and schools. Still, that surge in usage hasn't yet resulted in widespread outages or unusually long service disruptions, industry executives and analysts say. That is because the biggest increases in usage are happening during normally fallow periods.

Some service providers have joked that internet usage during the pandemic doesn't compare to the Super Bowl or season finale of the popular HBO show "Game of Thrones" in terms of strain on their networks, Evan Swarztrauber, senior policy adviser to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said this week on a call hosted by consulting company Recon Analytics Inc.Broadband consumption during the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m . has risen by more than 50% since January, according to broadband data company OpenVault, which measured connections in more than one million homes. Usage during the peak early-evening hours increased 20% as of March 25. OpenVault estimates that average data consumption per household in March will reach nearly 400 gigabytes, a nearly 11% increase over the previous monthly record in January....

Some carriers that use cells on wheels and aerial network-support drones after hurricanes or tornadoes are now deploying those resources to neighborhoods with heavy wireless-service usage and places where health-care facilities need additional connectivity. Several wireless carriers including Verizon, T-Mobile US Inc. and AT&T Inc. have been given temporary access to fresh spectrum over the past week to bolster network capacity.
While Netflix is lowering its video quality in Canada, the Journal reports Netflix isn't as worried about the EU: Netflix Vice President Dave Temkin, speaking on a videoconference hosted by the network analytics company Kentik, said his engineers took some upgrades originally planned for the holiday season near the end of 2020 and simply made them sooner. A European regulator earlier this month asked Netflix to shift all its videos to standard-definition to avoid taxing domestic networks. Mr. Temkin said Netflix managed to shave its bandwidth usage using less drastic measures. "None of it is actually melting down," he said.
And the article also has stats from America's ISPs and cellphone providers:

• AT&T said cellular-data traffic was almost flat, with more customers using their home wi-fi networks instead -- but voice phone calls increased as much as 44%.
• Charter saw increases in daytime network activity, but in most markets "levels remain well below capacity and typical peak evening usage."
• Comcast says its peak traffic increased 20%, but they're still running at 40% capacity.

schwit1 shares a report from UPI: The first official mission for the new U.S. Space Force lifted off from Florida at 4:18 p.m. EDT on Thursday into a virtually cloudless sky with a military communications satellite aboard. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket emblazoned with the Space Force chevron logo carried the satellite toward orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Stations Complex 41.

The payload on board is the sixth in a constellation of next-generation satellites known as Advanced Extremely High Frequency or AEHF. The satellite system, developed by Lockheed Martin, has upgraded anti-jamming capability. Northrop Grumman is the manufacturer. The new network provides global coverage for national leaders and tactical warfighters operating on the ground, at sea or in the air, Lockheed said. The anti-jam system also serves international allies such as Canada, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Australia.

South Korea "has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate," reported Nature earlier on Tuesday. "The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February." And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the other authoritarian measures that helped China bring its epidemic under control. "South Korea is a democratic republic, we feel a lockdown is not a reasonable choice," says Kim Woo-Joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University. South Korea's success may hold lessons for other countries — and also a warning: Even after driving case numbers down, the country is braced for a resurgence.

Behind its success so far has been the most expansive and well-organized testing program in the world, combined with extensive efforts to isolate infected people and trace and quarantine their contacts. South Korea has tested more than 270,000 people, which amounts to more than 5200 tests per million inhabitants — more than any other country except tiny Bahrain, according to the Worldometer website. The United States has so far carried out 74 tests per 1 million inhabitants, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. South Korea's experience shows that "diagnostic capacity at scale is key to epidemic control," says Raina MacIntyre, an emerging infectious disease scholar at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. "Contact tracing is also very influential in epidemic control, as is case isolation," she says...

Legislation enacted since [2015] gave the government authority to collect mobile phone, credit card, and other data from those who test positive to reconstruct their recent whereabouts. That information, stripped of personal identifiers, is shared on social media apps that allow others to determine whether they may have crossed paths with an infected person... There are 43 drive-through testing stations nationwide, a concept now copied in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In the first week of March, the Ministry of the Interior also rolled out a smartphone app that can track the quarantined and collect data on symptoms.


"We hope our experience will help other countries control this COVID-19 outbreak," Kim tells Nature. And Reuters reports that in the five days since the article was published, South Korea has still kept new infections around a low 100 or less each day -- for 12 consecutive days -- compared with the peak of 909 new cases reported on February 29.

Reuters adds that though South Korea has experienced 8,961 cases, on Monday it reported its lowest daily number yet for new cases -- 64. And on the same day, "257 patients were released from hospitals where they had been isolated for treatment, the KCDC said.

"South Korea posted more recoveries than new infections on March 13 for the first time since its first case was confirmed on January 20."

The 2020 spring edition of the Pwn2Own hacking contest has come to a close today. This year's winner is Team Fluoroacetate -- made up of security researchers Amat Cama and Richard Zhu -- who won the contest after accumulating nine points across the two-day competition, which was just enough to extend their dominance and win their fourth tournament in a row. From a report: But this year's edition was a notable event for another reason. While the spring edition of the Pwn2Own hacking contest takes place at the CanSecWest cyber-security conference, held each spring in Vancouver, Canada, this year was different. Due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and travel restrictions imposed in many countries around the globe, many security researchers couldn't attend or weren't willing to travel to Vancouver and potentially put their health at risk. Instead, this year's Pwn2Own edition has become the first-ever hacking contest that has been hosted in a virtual setting. Participants sent exploits to Pwn2Own organizers in advance, who ran the code during a live stream with all participants present. During the competition's two-day schedule, six teams managed to hack apps and operating systems like Windows, macOS, Ubuntu, Safari, Adobe Reader, and Oracle VirtualBox. All bugs exploited during the contest were immediately reported to their respective companies.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: New York City is working with the hospitality industry to possibly convert entire hotels into hospitals for patients without the novel coronavirus, in an effort to increase capacity at medical facilities as the outbreak grows. The city's emergency management commissioner, Deanne Criswell, said in an interview Wednesday that hotels could be vital as New York City needs more beds to treat those with Covid-19. The hotels would be for "those non-Covid patients who are really minor but need care," she said. It couldn't be determined how many beds would be immediately available for these patients or how much the city would pay hotels.

The city currently uses hotels for some quarantine, and could use them to house health-care workers who need places to stay, Ms. Criswell said. With the city's tourism industry hit by the virus, many hotels are now empty, she added. New York City has 1,339 confirmed cases of the virus as of Wednesday afternoon, with 10 deaths. City officials also hope to turn the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan into a large hospital, using federal medical stations, according to Ms. Criswell. Mayor Bill de Blasio said earlier this week the city had an additional 1,300 beds by reopening closed hospitals and other facilities, including Roosevelt Island's Coler hospital, a city hospital that was no longer in use. A recently built nursing home in Brooklyn will also be used to hold 600 beds, and two Bronx hospitals with more than 100 beds will also be available, according to Mr. de Blasio. To make more space, the city is also discharging patients that can leave hospitals, canceling elective surgeries, and building more capacity within hospitals. Earlier today, the U.S. and Canada announced it will suspend non-essential travel between the two countries to prevent the spread of the virus. This comes two days after Canada closed its borders to non-citizens with exceptions for U.S. citizens, air crews and diplomats.

The U.S. is also ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to suspend foreclosures and evictions for at least 60 days.

Uber said on Tuesday that it has begun suspending shared rides on its ride-hailing platform in the United States and Canada to limit the spread of the coronavirus. From a report: The pooled option, which allows riders to book trips at lower prices by sharing the car with up to three other passengers traveling in the same direction, has been disabled for users opening the apps in the two countries. "Our goal is to help flatten the curve on community spread in the cities we serve," senior vice president Uber Rides and Platform Andrew Macdonald said in a statement. A spokesman said similar steps outside the U.S. and Canada would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Regular rides and the company's food delivery platform Uber Eats remain available, but Uber said it was in contact with local authorities to adjust operations as needed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Amazon plans to hire an additional 100,000 employees in the U.S. as millions of people turn to online deliveries at an unprecedented pace and Americans continue to reorient their lives to limit the spread of the new coronavirus. Amazon plans to deploy the new workers to fuel its sprawling e-commerce machine and is raising pay for all employees in fulfillment centers, transportation, stores and deliveries in the U.S. and Canada by $2 an hour through April. In the U.K., it will go up $2.45 per hour and approximately $2.24 an hour in many EU countries, according to the company. Amazon now pays $15-per-hour as a starting wage to workers in its fulfillment centers around the U.S.

The tech giant's decision to go on a hiring spree and boost worker pay shows the dual challenge companies such as Amazon face as they seek to meet surging demand for food and key household items and also take care of employees at the front lines of the pandemic. Amazon employed nearly 800,000 full and part-time employees as of Dec. 31. More customers are turning to online shopping for everything from grocery delivery to paper towels, cleaning supplies and daily needs. Amazon, which also owns grocery store chain Whole Foods, was one of the companies Mr. Trump mentioned Sunday during his update on the coronavirus outbreak. Amazon accounts for 39% of all online orders in the U.S., according to eMarketer, and is shouldering a lot of those needs. Last week, Amazon asked employees at its New York and New Jersey offices to work from home. This came soon after the company told employees at its offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle area to work from home, following reports that an Amazon employee in Seattle tested positive for the virus.

"On Wednesday, Amazon expanded its sick-leave policy to include part-time warehouse workers and set up a relief fund, with an initial $25 million for delivery partners such as drivers and others affected by the outbreak," adds The Wall Street Journal. "The company earlier eased its policy for unpaid time off, offering workers the option to take unlimited unpaid time off through the end of March without penalties."

Willy English shares a report from CNBC: The president of France on Monday said he was ordering people in the country to stay at home for up to 15 days because of the coronavirus outbreak. President Emmanuel Macron said people should leave their homes only for essential duties, beginning midday Tuesday. Macron said he was taking the drastic step of limiting people's movements in France to reduce the risk of contamination from the virus. He said any violation of the edict would be punished. Macron also announced he was calling off the second round of municipal elections in light of his order. Macron's announcement came as Canada's leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, announced that he was closing the country's borders to foreigners, with the exception of U.S. citizens.

Canada is closing its borders to non-citizens because of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday. From a report: "We can still slow the spread of this virus," Trudeau said at a press conference. "It is time to take every precaution to keep people safe." Canada will make some exceptions to the closure of its borders, including for U.S. citizens. "We will be denying entry to Canada to people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents," Trudeau said. "This measure will carve out some designated exceptions, including for air crews, diplomats, immediate family members of Canadian citizens and, at this time, U.S. citizens."

President Trump announced he will restrict travel from Europe to the U.S. for the next 30 days in a bid to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The "strong but necessary" restrictions will not apply to the UK, where 460 cases of the virus have now been confirmed. "To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States," Mr Trump said in a televised speech from the Oval Office. "The new rules will go into effect Friday at midnight," he added. The BBC reports: Mr Trump also announced plans to provide billions of dollars in loans to small businesses, in an attempt to stymie the effect of the coronavirus outbreak on the US economy. He also urged Congress to pass major tax relief measures as part of an "aggressive and comprehensive effort" to combat the virus. "We are marshalling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the American people," he said. Earlier today, the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 virus is now officially a pandemic.

Globally, the virus has swept into at least 114 countries and killed more than 4,000 people. There are 1,135 confirmed cases of the virus across the U.S., with 38 deaths.

UPDATE 2:22 AM UTC: Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson have tested positive for the coronavirus. Also, the NBA announced it has suspended its season "until further notice" after a player on the Utah Jazz tested positive for the virus.

Faced with an array of opponents for its sensor-laden city of tomorrow in Toronto, a Google sibling has drastically dialed back plans. The critics now want the tech giant to quit altogether. From a report: The announcement was big enough for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fly down to Toronto and deliver. A corporate sibling of Google had been selected to transform a largely abandoned port area in Toronto into an innovative, sensor-laden, tech-centric city of tomorrow. But almost from the time of its unveiling, the project -- which combined environmentally advanced construction with a plan for sensors to track residents' movements and actions -- was hit by formidable opposition. Critics cast it as a recipe for a surveillance-driven, corporate-controlled urban dystopia and objected to turning over public spaces to one of the world's wealthiest companies.

Now, nearly two and a half years later, the opponents have shown that even if you can't fight city hall, you can take on Google and succeed. After admitting that it had underestimated privacy worries with its original plan, the Google sibling, Sidewalk Labs, has retreated. A couple of weeks ago, it unveiled details of a much watered-down plan along with new privacy protections. But some critics remain unconvinced. Waterfront Toronto, a government agency, will announce in May if the project will proceed.

"This thing has blown up on them," said one of the plan's leading critics, Jim Balsillie, who as a co-chief executive of Research in Motion helped make the BlackBerry the world's first successful smartphone and himself into one of Canada's biggest names in tech. "I smoked them out. They were playing us like a bunch of colonial supplicants and suckers." The story of how Toronto walked back the Google plan is in part a tale of locals taking on a big company. But it also reflects a growing pushback around the world against big tech that has accelerated since Sidewalk Labs unveiled its proposal.

Canada's federal and national police service the RCMP denied it was using facial recognition technology just a few weeks ago. But now long-time Slashdot reader satanicat quotes the CBC: [L]ast week, as the debate over the ethics of Clearview AI's facial recognition technology was heating up and following reports the company's client list had been hacked, the RCMP issued a statement confirming it had been using the technology for at least the previous four months. "The discrepancy is the result of an error on our part," said spokesperson Catherine Fortin in an email late Wednesday...

On Thursday, the force said its child exploitation unit has used the technology, resulting in the rescue of two children, for about four months. It's also acknowledged "a few units in the RCMP" are using the controversial tech to "enhance criminal investigations."

"Outside of use of the application in child sexual exploitation cases, usage has been explored on a very limited trial basis," said Fortin Wednesday, adding that RCMP headquarters is still confirming with all its divisions about what units have been using Clearview AI.