Police warn Alberta parents of rise in AI-generated deepfakes: ALERT
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Defined as 'deepfakes,' these videos, images and recordings look or sound completely realistic but have been altered using AI, according to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
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Faces can be super-imposed, expressions can be manipulated, and other elements can be combined to produce something new and to show someone doing or saying something that didn't occur, or wasn't said.
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As a member of the ICE's community engagement team, Const. Stephanie Bosch said a lot of the discussions held around AI deep fakes are being generated in schools and being used as a form of cyber bullying and harassment.
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'We're seeing situations where someone in the school has created a nude image of said child and now they're using that against the kid as a form of bullying or circulating it around the school,' Bosch said.
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Bosch said these deepfakes are being used to victimize children and youth, and while it hasn't reached a level yet where the ICE unit has seen cases where the children and youth are being extorted, it could just be a matter of time.
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'I can say the way that it's trending in the schools that at some point for sure I wouldn't be surprised if we do see one of these investigations reach (that level),' said Bosch.
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According to cybertip.ca, roughly 4,000 sexually explicit deepfake images and videos of children and youth were generated last year.
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According to Thorn a non-profit group that builds technology to defend children from sexual abuse, data shows that one in 10 youth say they know of cases where their friends and classmates have created 'deepfake nudes' of other kids using AI-generated tools.
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'With kids going on summer break and having a lot more time on their phones and devices, having these discussions now is important. It's a great opportunity to have conversations about nude images, but also AI-generated content,' said Bosch.
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'I want to be very clear about this. AI-generated nude images of a child still meet the definition of child pornography in the Criminal Code, so it's considered child abuse sexual material.'
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Winnipeg Free Press
12 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A day outside an LA detention center shows profound impact of ICE raids on families
LOS ANGELES (AP) — At a federal immigration building in downtown Los Angeles guarded by U.S. Marines, daughters, sons, aunts, nieces and others make their way to an underground garage and line up at a door with a buzzer at the end of a dirty, dark stairwell. It's here where families, some with lawyers, come to find their loved ones after they've been arrested by federal immigration agents. For immigrants without legal status who are detained in this part of Southern California, their first stop is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in the basement of the federal building. Officers verify their identity and obtain their biometrics before transferring them to detention facilities. Upstairs, immigrants line up around the block for other services, including for green cards and asylum applications. On a recent day, dozens of people arrived with medication, clothing and hope of seeing their loved one, if only briefly. After hours of waiting, many were turned away with no news, not even confirmation that their relative was inside. Some relayed reports of horrific conditions inside, including inmates who are so thirsty that they have been drinking from the toilets. ICE did not respond to emailed requests for comment. Just two weeks ago, protesters marched around the federal complex following aggressive raids in Los Angeles that began June 6 and have not stopped. Scrawled expletives about President Donald Trump still mark the complex's walls. Those arrested are from a variety of countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, India, Iran, China and Laos. About a third of the county's 10 million residents are foreign-born. Many families learned about the arrests from videos circulating on social media showing masked officers in parking lots at Home Depots, at car washes and in front of taco stands. Around 8 a.m., when attorney visits begin, a few lawyers buzz the basement door called 'B-18″ as families wait anxiously outside to hear any inkling of information. 9 a.m. Christina Jimenez and her cousin arrive to check if her 61-year-old stepfather is inside. Her family had prepared for the possibility of this happening to the day laborer who would wait to be hired outside a Home Depot in the LA suburb of Hawthorne. They began sharing locations when the raids intensified. They told him that if he were detained, he should stay silent and follow instructions. Jimenez had urged him to stop working, or at least avoid certain areas as raids increased. But he was stubborn and 'always hustled.' 'He could be sick and he's still trying to make it out to work,' Jimenez said. After learning of his arrest, she looked him up online on the ICE Detainee Locator but couldn't find him. She tried calling ICE to no avail. Two days later, her phone pinged with his location downtown. 'My mom's in shock,' Jimenez said. 'She goes from being very angry to crying, same with my sister.' Jimenez says his name into the intercom – Mario Alberto Del Cid Solares. After a brief wait, she is told yes, he's there. She and her cousin breathe a sigh of relief — but their questions remain. Her biggest fear is that instead of being sent to his homeland of Guatemala, he will be deported to another country, something the Supreme Court recently ruled was allowed. 9:41 a.m. By mid-morning, Estrella Rosas and her mother have come looking for her sister, Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen. A day earlier, they saw Velez being detained after they dropped her off at her marketing job at a shoe company downtown. 'My mom told me to call 911 because someone was kidnapping her,' Rosas said. Stuck on a one-way street, they had to circle the block. By the time they got back, she says they saw Velez in handcuffs being put into a car without license plates. Velez's family believes she was targeted for looking Hispanic and standing near a tamale stand. Rosas has her sister's passport and U.S. birth certificate, but learns she is not there. They find her next door in a federal detention center. She was accused of obstructing immigration officers, which the family denies, but is released the next day. 11:40 a.m. About 20 people are now outside. Some have found cardboard to sit on after waiting hours. One family comforts a woman who is crying softly in the stairwell. Then the door opens, and a group of lawyers emerge. Families rush to ask if the attorneys could help them. Kim Carver, a lawyer with the Trans Latino Coalition, says she planned to see her client, a transgender Honduran woman, but she was transferred to a facility in Texas at 6:30 that morning. Carver accompanied her less than a week ago for an immigration interview and the asylum officer told her she had a credible case. Then ICE officers walked in and detained her. 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Winnipeg Free Press
a day ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Florida cooperation with immigration enforcement sparks fears people will disappear into jails
MIAMI (AP) — As Florida law enforcement agencies work with federal immigration officials, family members and immigrants' rights advocates worry that people will disappear into county jail systems despite the state's expansive public record laws. Miami-Dade officials said during a Thursday commission meeting that they are committed to transparency and will continue to follow state laws regarding the release of information about inmates. But one section of an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement designates all records and information created under the agreement as federal records, and some observers say ICE would have the final say on what information is made public, including whether a person is even in custody. That could be a huge problem, said William Mann, an attorney with the Community Justice Project. 'I think the concerns that many folks have would be that they (county officials) would use this language that's in this basic ordering agreement … to prevent loved ones, family members, friends, advocates and journalists from accessing information,' Mann said. 'Meaning that they would disappear into the Miami-Dade system if they were technically an ICE prisoner.' ICE officials confirmed receipt of emails seeking comment on the issue, but did not offer any comment on the issue. Immigration enforcement evolves Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, local and state officials must take a much more aggressive role in supporting federal immigration enforcement, which has ramped up since President Donald Trump's return to office in January. A law 2022 law expanded the state's ban on so-called sanctuary policies and required agencies that operate county detention facilities to enter into agreements with ICE that empower local officers to identify and process 'removable aliens' in their jails. Another measure signed into law this year requires officials responsible for overseeing local or state law enforcement to use their 'best efforts' to support federal immigration enforcement. Upon the request of a federal agency, county detention centers are also required to provide a list of 'all inmates' and 'any information' about each one's immigration status. 'Today, the Florida Legislature has passed the strongest legislation to combat illegal immigration of any state in the entire country,' DeSantis said earlier this year. 'We are ahead of the curve on ending the illegal immigration crisis.' Florida requires local support of federal immigration enforcement Local elected officials who initially balked at signing cooperation agreements with ICE have been threatened by the state attorney general with removal from office. At Thursday's Miami-Dade commission meeting, the board was scheduled to vote on new provisions for the county's existing ICE agreement but ultimately deferred and chose to let Mayor Daniella Levine Cava ratify the deal herself. Levine Cava told people who attended the hearing that she had no choice in the matter: 'This is the law of Florida, and it was required that this agreement be signed.' She and several commissioners noted that any public records the county has jurisdiction over would continue to be publicly available. While officials in Miami-Dade have said they are committed to transparency, federal inmates, including people on immigration holds, had not been appearing in Orange County jail records until just last week. Difficulty tracking records Ericka Gómez-Tejeda, organizing director for Hope Community Center, said officials in the central Florida county took the position that the federal records were not covered by state open records laws, meaning immigrants were effectively disappearing into the system. Gómez-Tejeda pointed to the case of Esvin Juarez, who was arrested and deported to Guatemala this month before his family and attorney even knew where he was being held. Making it difficult to track detained immigrants is intentional, she said. 'It's working to the advantage of people's due process being violated,' Gómez-Tejeda said. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings directed the jail to begin posting information about ICE detainees last week, but Gómez-Tejeda said that might not help inmates were arrested in other counties or states before being taken to Orange County. 'We have people who have been sent to four or five different detention centers,' Gómez-Tejeda said. 'And each state that you go into, that family then needs to identify an attorney that will then do their representation and their paperwork. So it puts an onerous responsibility on the families.' Democratic congressman proposes bill to stop unlawful detention U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat who represents the Orlando area, introduced legislation this month aimed at stopping unlawful detention and ending detainee mistreatment. It would require all ICE facilities to publicly report who is being detained, as well as where, when and why. 'This bill won't fix everything, but if Donald Trump and his allies think these policies are defensible, then they shouldn't be afraid to tell the public exactly what they're doing,' Frost said. 'If they're proud of it, they'll report it. If they're ashamed, they need to end it.' ___ Associated Press writer Kate Payne in Tallahassee contributed.
CTV News
2 days ago
- CTV News
Police find stolen vehicle in Wellington County thanks to GPS device
An Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) patch is seen in Ottawa, on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby A 20-year-old man is facing multiple charges after police were able to find a stolen vehicle using a GPS and Bluetooth enabled device in the car. Ontario Provincial Police said they were told of a stolen vehicle from another jurisdiction within Wellington County on June 28. Police said the owner was able to track their vehicle using a GPS and Bluetooth tracking device they had left inside. With this, police were able to find the exact location of the vehicle. Officers found a 20-year-old man from Montreal and charged him with with possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000 in Canada, failure to comply with release order – other than to attend court, failure to comply with probation order, two counts of operation while prohibited under the Criminal Code.
