If you’ve ever Googled your name (don’t worry, we all have) then there’s a good chance you’ve seen your email and even phone number pop up.

The reason for this is data brokers, companies that flog people’s personal information to anyone willing to pay, from advertisers to cyber crooks.

Data brokers also scavenge for addresses and information on the victim’s friends and family, with the market worth about £250billion worldwide.

But Google has updated a little-known tool that allows users to, well, Google themselves to find and remove their personal info online.

What is Results about you?

Results about you generate reports about sites that might have your personal information by, well, Googling it.

You can then click a button to flag it for it to be removed from search results, with Google reviewing the request first.

When Metro gave the tool a whirl, we found our name and email mentioned in obvious places – Metro author pages, social media profiles and online directories, for example.

But it was also publicly available in more unexpected places, like a French photography studio’s website that now redirects to a shady dating network.

Google will email you when it finds your information and give you the option to remove it from Google search, the idea being that it’ll stop data brokers from finding it, too.

Chris Yule, senior director of threat research at the cyber defence firm Sophos X-Ops, told Metro that Results about you is for the privacy-conscious.

‘Say you’re a doctor or a policewoman and you don’t want members of the public you’re interacting with finding your address from a quick Google search,’ Yule says.

‘Google will review requests to remove results if people search for you.

‘What it doesn’t do is stop your data being made available or sold online. Your information will still be available on the site it’s being sold on, but Google won’t link to it in results anymore.’

Why should I be worried about data brokers?

Yule warns that Sophos X-Ops has seen a 1253% increase in the volume of personal data for sale on the dark web over the last five years.

The shady corner of the internet uses technology that allows both sides of an online interaction to hide their identity and location.

‘Data brokers will steal and gather personal data with the sole objective of selling it on to people who can use it to make money, whether that’s personal data for identity theft and fraud, financial data for payment fraud, or technical data like usernames and passwords that can be used for ransomware and other cybercrime,’ Yule adds.

In a blog post, Google said it’s beefing up Results about you in the US, so users can hunt mentions of their passport details or social security number, which is used to apply for welfare.

Expanded monitoring will soon be available in ‘additional regions’.

To find any of this information, you do need to hand it directly over to Google – the company said the tool uses ‘rigorous security protocols’.

Yule says the irony in giving Google your data for it to find your data isn’t lost on him.

‘Ultimately, Google is the arbiter of search results for most people, so if you want their help in taking down things you don’t want people to see, then you need to give them something to work with,’ he says.

Not everyone ‘plays by Google’s rules’, warns cybercrime expert

The tool is part of a growing number of paid data removal services, which keep your information out of data brokers’ hands on your behalf.

But such services still struggle to keep up with identity thieves, who can use an increasingly sophisticated array of tools to pretend to be you.

Jake Moore, a global cybersecurity advisor at software firm ESET, tells Metro that commonplace AI systems ‘don’t play by Google’s rules’.

‘AI is far more powerful at researching, so it’s important to be aware that some of these platforms can also share personal information sometimes,’ Moore says.

‘It is much better to attempt to remove the data from its origin than rely on the search removal tool.’

If you’re wary of what information about you is out there, Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN, has some tips.

‘Privacy should be approached in layers,’ Briedis says.

‘Adjusting account settings and managing what appears in search results can reduce exposure, but tools that protect your connection – such as VPNs – can also help limit how much of your browsing activity is visible to networks, advertisers and other third parties.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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Canada is working to launch hundreds of new communication satellites that Prime Minister Mark Carney and experts say will be “fundamental” to sovereign defence capabilities and autonomy from the United States.

During a speech to Australia’s parliament on Thursday, Carney highlighted a soon-to-launch, made-in-Canada low earth orbit (LEO) satellite network that could soon compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink in providing far-reaching internet services.

That in turn will help with everything from military operations to natural disaster responses, experts say — particularly in the Arctic.

“Satellite communications are now a fundamental requirement for security and strategic autonomy,” Carney said Thursday.

“A Canadian-based constellation of LEO satellites will launch next year to provide reliable and secure global communications. We are working with other like-minded partners who possess similar capabilities to build out a deep and resilient system we can all share and control in our own territories.”

The new defence industrial strategy includes space, and specifically satellite communications, as one of its 10 key sovereign capabilities that the federal government is looking to prioritize.

The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed Carney was referencing Telesat Lightspeed, a network of nearly 200 LEO satellites that was initially set to go into orbit late this year.

The project was given a $2.14-billion federal loan in 2024 to expand internet and 5G connectivity across Canada, including in remote and Indigenous communities that have long been without fast, reliable service.

Many of those communities have come to rely on Starlink, which has contracts with multiple provinces and territories and is currently the sixth-largest internet provider in Canada, according to a 2025 report from the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project.

2:42
SpaceX launches latest round of Starlink satellites

The company operates thousands of LEO satellites with an altitude of 600 km, and says it delivers the same kind of service provided by larger and far more expensive medium-earth orbit GPS satellites at a fraction of the cost.

Telesat sets itself apart by flying its LEO satellites at a 1,300-kilometre altitude, “literally flying over the traffic jams” created by the increasingly crowded low-orbit area used by most other satellites.

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“There’s a great race in the world now” among private companies and countries looking to develop and launch their own LEO satellite networks, said Susan Skone, a satellite technology researcher and professor at the University of Calgary who co-leads the Space-Defence Technologies Alberta research project.

“It’s great, frankly, that Canada is being assertive about having our own capabilities … because what’s not great is if somebody from another country can turn that (network) off at will, and we don’t control it.”

In his speech, Carney alluded to restrictions Musk has placed on Ukraine’s use of Starlink for its military during the war with Russia, while underscoring the importance of sovereign satellite capabilities.

Canada’s use of Starlink came under scrutiny last year after U.S. President Donald Trump launched his trade war against Canada, at a time when Musk was serving as a special adviser to Trump and leading efforts to slash U.S. government budgets and funding through DOGE.

Ontario cancelled a $100-million contract with Starlink as part of its retaliation against the U.S., and other provinces and territories said they were reconsidering their own contracts and looking at made-in-Canada options.

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Ford government agrees to fee cancelling $100M deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink

However, the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project report noted that until Telesat Lightspeed comes online, “Starlink remains the only realistic solution” for rural and remote communities in Canada.

Emma Spanswick, who co-leads Space-Defence Technologies Alberta with Skone and frequently does research projects in the Arctic, said Starlink’s arrival was a “game-changer” for sending data back from the far north.

“We still have to recover some data in these communities via hard drives,” the University of Calgary physics and astronomy professor said. “We call our data recovery method ‘Canada Post,’ because that’s actually what we use.”

Having a made-in-Canada satellite constellation would allow Canadians — rather than Americans through Starlink — to determine the satellites’ positions, Skone added, ensuring the Arctic and other critical communities are adequately covered.

She also pointed to the wildfires in northern Canada as a real-world example of LEO satellites providing more reliable connectivity for communities and first responders.

“There were wildfires in the Yellowknife area and in northern B.C. which compromised two fibre links … being used to connect Inuvik in terms of internet and so on,” she said.

“When they were compromised, some service providers had a backup (and) some service providers did not. And some people went without connectivity and TV for several weeks.”

During the wildfires last year, Starlink provided a month of free service to customers in Canada in order to receive real-time emergency information.

Although LEO satellites have until recently been focused on civilian services, the researchers said countries are increasingly looking at it as a defence priority.

The 2024 loan announcement for Telesat Lightspeed said that, in addition to expanding internet connectivity, the network will help the federal government “bolster its satellite communications technology and support NATO and NORAD modernization.”

0:49
Canada to strengthen Arctic military communications

With more countries and coalitions like the European Union pursuing their own LEO networks, leaders like Carney are now looking at integrating them for seamless communications between militaries.

“If we want to have forces of other nations working with us in the Arctic environment or we go somewhere else, we want to be able to take our hardware and we don’t want to have to change,” Skone said. “We want it to be interoperable across what all the forces are doing.

“That’s a big word at NATO in terms of the capabilities amongst allies: they’re free to develop their own manner of delivering capabilities and being capable to do certain things, but it should be interoperable to the largest extent possible with other systems.”

Spanswick and Skone compared it to how civilians can move between cellular data networks and not notice a drop in service on their smartphones.

Telesat is being increasingly looked at for Canada’s satellite communication needs.

The federal government in December signed a new strategic partnership with Telesat and MDA Space, another Canadian firm and Telesat’s primary satellite contractor, to develop military satellite communications for the Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic.

The partnership is for the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project — Polar (ESCP-P) project, which comes with a budget that exceeds $5 billion and is estimated to come online in 2037. The project is part of Canada’s multi-billion-dollar NORAD modernization project.

Skone said the more satellites Canada can optimize, the better — particularly if they’re made and designed at home.

“I always say to the government folks, while there are solutions that we leverage, whether it’s GPS and others, they’re not necessarily designed to work in the most optimal manner for Canadian geography,” she said.

“It’s wonderful to know that there will be civilian and military capabilities delivering connectivity specifically designed to be robust and secure for Canada.”

Federal Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says the CEO of OpenAI has agreed to take several actions to bolster safety, including providing a report outlining the new systems the firm is developing to identify high-risk offenders and policy violators.

A statement from Solomon following his meeting Wednesday with Sam Altman says the minister will also ask the Canadian AI Safety Institute to examine the company’s model and provide expert technical advice to his office.

The meeting follows the revelation that OpenAI banned the mass shooter in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., from using its ChatGPT chatbot last June due to worrisome interactions but did not alert law enforcement before the killings last month.

3:53
South Peace MLA calls for full Tumbler Ridge inquiry

OpenAI has said new protocols would have resulted in Jesse Van Rootselaar’s interactions being flagged to police, but Solomon says the tragedy “demands answers and stronger safeguards when powerful AI technologies are involved.”

Solomon says the actions Altman has agreed to take include establishing a direct point of contact with RCMP and implementing safety protocols that direct people “experiencing distress” to appropriate local services.

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The minister says Altman also confirmed the company would apply its new safety standards retroactively and review previously flagged cases.

1:55
AI minister ‘disappointed’ with OpenAI meeting on Tumbler Ridge shooter

“This will determine whether additional incidents that would have been referred to law enforcement under OpenAI’s new safety standards were missed, and ensure they are promptly reported to the RCMP,” Solomon’s statement says.

It says the company has also committed to assessing how they would include Canadian privacy, mental health and law enforcement experts into the process to identify and review high-risk cases involving Canadian users of OpenAI technology.

Van Rootselaar fatally shot eight people in Tumbler Ridge on Feb. 10, including six children, before killing herself.

B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma said Eby would meet Altman to find out whether the company could have prevented the shootings.

2:10
Inquest to be held into Tumbler Ridge school shooting

Sharma said there is a larger question for Ottawa when it comes to regulating and overseeing platforms like OpenAI.

The Altman meetings come after B.C.’s chief coroner, Dr. Jatinder Baidwan, on Tuesday announced an inquest into the shootings that will consider the role of artificial intelligence.

Sharma said she hopes OpenAI will participate in the inquest and share whatever it knows.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2026.

&copy 2026 The Canadian Press

The chief executive of Capital Power Corp. is expressing enthusiasm about opportunities to power new data centres in Alberta, as the province prepares to hammer out rules for connecting more projects to the grid without jeopardizing consumer reliability and affordability.

“The market environment is increasingly becoming more attractive for Alberta. The pace at which the announcements are coming out may not be at the pace that the market is expecting,” Avik Dey told analysts on a conference call Wednesday to discuss the company’s fourth-quarter results.

“But I think below the surface, the work that’s being done to facilitate new generation coming in… has been in some ways leading North America.

“We continue to be excited about it, and frankly more excited today than I’ve been at any other point in time.”

Data centres are enormous facilities that house the computing firepower needed for artificial intelligence and other applications. Such operations require massive amounts of energy to run and cool the computer servers.

The Alberta government aims to attract $100 billion in data centre development by the end of this decade, hoping to lure tech behemoths like Meta Platforms Inc.

Some power generators have been looking at opportunities to provide power exclusively to a tech partner, while others have been eyeing options to add more juice to the overall grid.

The province aims to fast track the “bring your own power” proposals through the regulatory process.

1:43
Surging growth continues in Albertas tech sector

The Alberta Electric System Operator is allowing the connection of up to 1,200 megawatts of large-load projects until 2028 — a small fraction of what had been requested — so as not to compromise reliability.

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That capacity has been snapped up by TransAlta and a joint-venture between Pembina Pipeline Ltd. and Kineticor.

The grid operator is consulting industry as it develops a long-term plan to enable more data centre investment without overburdening the province’s power system.

Capital Power has said its Genesee Generating Station west of Edmonton would be an ideal spot for a data centre partner to set up shop.

“I could not be more emphatic about the fact that we think we’ve got a world-class site that can materially increase generation,” Dey said.

He said its access to land, water and transmission infrastructure makes Genesee “probably one of the most attractive generation sites anywhere in North America” with an ability to expand.

In December, Capital Power announced a memorandum of understanding with New York-based Apollo Funds to form a US$3-billion investment partnership to buy U.S. merchant natural gas power assets.

Separately, it said it had entered into a binding MOU to negotiate a 250-megawatt electricity supply agreement with an unidentified investment-grade data centre developer in Alberta with an expected 2028 start date.

1:54
Power grid reliability risks rising as demand outpaces new supply: NERC report

Earlier Wednesday, Capital Power reported a $13-million net loss for the fourth quarter, compared to net earnings attributable to shareholders of $240 million a year earlier.

The loss amounted to 12 cents per share versus a profit of $1.75 per diluted share during the final three months of 2024.

The Edmonton-based utility says its revenues and other income were $1.08 billion, an increase from $853 million in the prior-year quarter

Adjusted funds from operations rose to $244 million from $182 million year-over-year.

&copy 2026 The Canadian Press

Canada’s artificial intelligence minister will meet virtually with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Wednesday afternoon to discuss changes the company has committed to making after last month’s mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

The timing was confirmed to Global News by a spokesperson for AI Minister Evan Solomon’s office.

Solomon sought the meeting with Altman after OpenAI said last week it would enhance its police referral and repeat offender detection practices, among other new safety measures, after it did not flag the Tumbler Ridge shooter’s ChatGPT activity to police last summer.

The company, which said it disabled Jesse VanRootselaar’s account in June over “violent” activity, said in a statement that it had also discovered a second ChatGPT account linked to her name after the shooting, despite a system that flags repeat policy offenders.

OpenAI ultimately alerted RCMP to the shooter’s ChatGPT activity after the mass shooting, in which eight people died and dozens more were injured. The shooter took her own life.

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OpenAI acknowledged in its statement last week that, “under our enhanced law enforcement referral protocol, we would refer the account banned in June 2025 to law enforcement if it were discovered today.”

2:04
OpenAI representatives summoned to Ottawa over Tumbler Ridge shooting

Solomon said in a statement last week that OpenAI’s commitments, while welcome, did not include “a detailed plan for how these commitments will be implemented in practice” and that more clarity was needed.

“I will be meeting directly with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman next week to seek further clarity and to ensure that the commitments made are translated into concrete action,” he wrote.

Altman has yet to comment publicly on the Tumbler Ridge shooting, the commitments his company has made in response, or his meeting with Solomon.

British Columbia Premier David Eby has said he will also meet with Altman, but a date for that meeting has not yet been announced. Global News has reached out to Eby’s office for comment.

OpenAI’s commitments came after company representatives met with Solomon and three other federal ministers in Ottawa to discuss its safety practices.

The ministers left the meeting “disappointed” that OpenAI did not present “concrete actions” it would take in response, while experts and opposition MPs called on the government to step in with regulations.

Solomon has not ruled out legislation to address police referral practices for AI companies that detect violent behaviour on their platforms. The minister has said he will meet with other companies in the coming weeks to discuss the issue.

Eby has called for a national standard for police referrals, calling OpenAI’s improvements and commitments for change “cold comfort for the people in Tumbler Ridge.”

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Tinder has agreed to pay $60.5 million in California to settle a class action lawsuit that accused the popular dating app of age discrimination.

The lawsuit alleged that Tinder violated state law by charging older users more than younger users when they signed up for premium subscriptions. It was originally filed in 2015 on behalf of Tinder user Allan Candelore.

More than 260,000 users are expected to be eligible for payouts.

The settlement terms apply to California residents aged 29 or older who bought Tinder Plus or Tinder Gold subscriptions at any time on or after March 2, 2015, or any time after March 2, 2016 if they were 28 or over.

“Tinder has brazenly announced and employed a multi-tiered pricing plan that treats consumers unequally based solely on their age,” the original lawsuit said.

Under the settlement’s terms, Tinder did not admit to any wrongdoing.

Affected users have until April 8 to opt out or object to the settlement terms and until Aug. 18 to specify how they’d like to receive their money.

“Each class member will also receive a share based on how much the class member paid for Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold,” according to the settlement notice.

A court hearing for final approval of the settlement is scheduled for May 20 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Tinder representatives did not immediately return a request for comment.

Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says he wants more clarity on OpenAI’s committed safety protocol changes after the Tumbler Ridge, B.C., mass shooting, and isn’t ruling out legislative changes to address the issue.

The company behind ChatGPT on Thursday said it would enhance its police referral and repeat offender detection practices, after it did not elevate the shooter’s AI chatbot activity to police months before she killed eight people and wounded dozens of others.

In a statement Friday, Solomon said OpenAI’s statement did not include “a detailed plan for how these commitments will be implemented in practice.”

He said he would be meeting with CEO Sam Altman next week to “seek further clarity” and assurances of “concrete action.”

“The tragedy in Tumbler Ridge has raised serious questions about how digital platforms respond when credible warning signs of violence emerge,” the minister said. “Canadians deserve greater clarity about how human review decisions are made, how escalation thresholds are applied, and how privacy considerations are balanced with public safety.

“We will be seeking further clarity on how human review is conducted and whether Canadian context and best practices are appropriately embedded in those decisions. I will also be consulting with my cabinet colleagues on additional options.”

Solomon added he would also be meeting with other AI companies in the coming weeks “to ensure there is a consistent and clear approach to escalation, local coordination, and youth protection.”

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“Decisions affecting Canadians must reflect Canadian laws, Canadian standards, and Canadian expertise,” he said.

“All options remain on the table as we assess what further steps may be necessary. Public safety must come first.”

Solomon and other federal ministers expressed frustration with OpenAI after the company did not present an action plan during a meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday.

The ministers said they would give OpenAI a chance to come back with one before considering a legislative response to the issue of how AI companies handle and address users’ violent behaviour.

2:04
OpenAI representatives summoned to Ottawa over Tumbler Ridge shooting

Researchers and opposition MPs have urged the federal government to speed up efforts to regulate the AI industry in the wake of the Tumbler Ridge shooting.

OpenAI acknowledged on Thursday that, if it had detected Jesse VanRootselaar’s ChatGPT activity today, it would have flagged it to law enforcement under its current police referral thresholds, which were updated “several months ago.”

Instead, that activity was only referred to RCMP after the shooting occurred.

It also revealed that it found a second ChatGPT account linked to VanRootselaar after she was identified as the shooter in Tumbler Ridge — despite her first account being shut down last June due to “violent” activity and a system meant to detect repeat violators of OpenAI’s policies.

The company committed to further enhancing both of those protocols, as well as establishing direct points of contact with Canadian authorities and developing better practices of connecting users to local mental health supports if they exhibit troubling behaviour.

B.C. Premier David Eby said Thursday he will also be meeting with Altman, calling OpenAI’s commitments “cold comfort for the people of Tumbler Ridge.”

He told reporters Friday in Vancouver there is no firm date yet for the meeting with the CEO, who has yet to comment publicly on the Tumbler Ridge tragedy or the changes his company says it will make in Canada.

“I want to recognize that OpenAI did come forward,” Eby said. “They did bring the information forward to police. They didn’t try to cover it up after the fact, but this was a colossal, horrific mistake, I guess, is the most generous interpretation I can offer, to fail to bring that information forward to authorities.

“It’s important that Mr. Altman realizes that, and I will be looking for his support for a national standard across Canada, a national threshold where all AI companies must report — and clear consequences for if they fail to report — incidents where people are planning violence, planning to hurt other people, and using these tools to develop those plans.”

—with files from the Canadian Press

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.