The Pattison Food Group, which operates the More Rewards loyalty program through its Save-On-Foods, Buy-Low Foods, PriceSmart Foods and Nesters stores, said it discovered unusual activity on one of its servers on Tuesday.
It said the server was down and a third-party cybersecurity expert was brought in.
“The information includes name, and, if provided, address, phone number, email addresses, and date of birth.
My concern for poors were mostly that they are easy target for scammers offering too good solutions. Even the classical nigerian prince (or letter of Jerusalem / spanish princess ; it is the same trick) is far more efficient when personalized to the target. Also as many people claim they have nothing to hide to their gouv, not seeing that they aren’t the only buyers.
Even those who love their gouv may feel they have something to hide to those who want to scam them, and to those who want to use them as a leverage to scam their relatives.
But you are right, I forgot the american political context ; and as scary as it sounds, I am quite sure that with six monthes of groceries, some statistics can guess quite correctly the political opinion and country of origine of clients.
“Thanks” to AI, hallucinations make that political targets would be randomized enough so that it should also be a concern for those who “have nothing to hide”.
International treaties that were made decades ago, have not adjusted to the new reality of what the USA has become. That’s why you see stories like the server being seized in amsterdam recently, which allowed the USA govt to go after an ISP in a foreign country for hosting left-leaning websites. The administration declared “anti-fascists” as terrorists, and DEI, or even just “people who say AI instead of Super Intelligence” as the enemy. Now all their treaties with western countries that allow them to extradite / try their enemies, can get leveraged to go after foreign progressives.
Getting data that helps them ‘claim’ there are enemies in other countries, makes it easier. Even just pulling something like the last 6 months of grocery data, as you noted, could let them see, for example, which Canadians are continuing to buy American goods, and which Canadians are “the problem”. It can also help them better gauge the ‘real’ tone of the Canadian population, compared to the rhetoric spouted by the government. Lots of reasons to snag that data if you could.