Category: 3. Business

As the holiday season approaches, the Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) Fraud Unit would like to take the opportunity to draw the public’s attention to potential scams, frauds and thefts.  The Fraud Unit wants to remind individuals to remain vigilant as fraudsters and thieves take advantage of increased shopping, travel, and seasonal distractions.

Distraction Thefts

• What are they – Often occur in busy areas such as parking lots, shopping centres, and transit hubs. Offenders may attempt to divert a victim’s attention in an effort to steal wallets, purses, phones, or other valuables.
• What can be done – These attempts can be mitigated by remaining alert, maintaining a personal space gap, and keeping personal belongings secure at all times.

Financial Fraud Schemes

• What are they – They often start with a phone call where fraudsters claim to be from a financial institution. Fraudsters may advise of alleged suspicious or fraudulent activity on an account and try to get victims to tell them their personal or financial information.
• What can be done – 

Financial institutions will never ask for your PIN, online banking password, or full security credentials. Do not provide this information over the phone. 

Financial institutions will never send someone to your home or workplace to collect bank cards or cash.  Do not give your bank card or cash out to a “collector”.

Financial institutions will never ask clients to assist with an “internal investigation.” Do not assist them. 

You will never be instructed by a legitimate financial institution to withdraw money and send it to them in any format, including cash, gift cards, cryptocurrency, wire transfers, or e-transfers. Do not convert your money. 

If you receive a request from someone who has contacted you, hang up immediately and contact your financial institution directly using a trusted phone number.

The Fraud Unit would also like to remind people who use online shopping during the holidays, to exercise caution and verify the legitimacy of websites and sellers.  Watch for deals that seem too good to be true and avoid clicking on suspicious links or unsolicited advertisements.

If you believe you have been targeted by fraud or theft, report it immediately to your financial institution and contact the Niagara Regional Police Service at 905-688-4111.

Members of the community who wish to provide information anonymously can contact Crime Stoppers of Niagara online or by calling 1-800-222-8477(TIPS). Crime Stoppers offers cash rewards to people who contact the program with information which leads to an arrest.

Staying informed and cautious can help ensure a safe and enjoyable holiday season for everyone.

Waterloo, Ontario, December 17, 2025 — Canada, Ontario and the Region of Waterloo are investing more than $291 million through the Public Transit Infrastructure Stream of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program to increase access to public transit, reduce emissions and improve service and accessibility for commuters in Waterloo Region.  

The Honourable Bardish Chagger, Member of Parliament for Waterloo, Tim Louis, Member of Parliament for Kitchener—Conestoga, the Honourable Prabmeet Sarkaria, Ontario’s Minister of Transportation, the Honourable Mike Harris, Member of Provincial Parliament for Kitchener—Conestoga, Jess Dixon, Member of Provincial Parliament for Kitchener South—Hespeler, Brian Riddell, Member of Provincial Parliament for Cambridge, and Karen Redman, Chair of the Region of Waterloo, announced a total of nine investments together in Waterloo.

Part of today’s investments will support the construction of the Kitchener Central Transit Hub (KCTH). Seamlessly uniting active transportation, ION light rail, GO transit, VIA rail, intercity buses, passenger vehicles and Grand River Transit, the new facility will operate as an important node connecting Kitchener to the greater Region of Waterloo and beyond. It will include modern and accessible features such as Wi-Fi, advanced security systems, a central plaza, and integration with the local trail network. Through this investment, the adjacent bus terminal at the corner of King Street and Victoria Street will also be upgraded with four additional bus bays and one mobility bus stop.

Funding is also being provided for public transit projects that will improve and support the delivery of affordable and reliable transit options in the Region of Waterloo. The projects include purchasing 56 hybrid buses to replace retired diesel buses and expanding the fleet with up to 70 additional hybrid buses. Other projects will enhance access to transit by supporting improvements for paths and pedestrian bridges and support general transit operations by improving accessibility and commuter comfort and safety.

Investments in public transit help Canadians get where they need to be, create new manufacturing and construction jobs, reduce pollution, and make life more affordable. The investments announced today will help reduce emissions, improve the travel experience for commuters and connect people to jobs, homes and more opportunities. Purchasing new hybrid vehicles, investing in sustainable technology, upgrading stops and paths around busy transit locations, and updating transit IT systems are vital to maintaining a safe, efficient and reliable public transit service for residents across the Waterloo region.

Since the introduction of the current regulatory framework, the financial landscape has evolved significantly. We now have an opportunity to build a regime that is more targeted to current market conditions and to reduce unnecessary burdens on industry, without compromising high standards. We are working with the Government to reform the current benchmarks regime to ensure that the regulatory framework remains proportionate, effective and tailored to UK markets.

We will consult on the regulatory requirements in due course. As we develop our regime, we will engage widely to inform our approach, including with benchmarks administrators, users, and other regulatory bodies.

Read the Government’s consultation.

In-patient service demands have increased during a time when patients have experienced reduced access to hospital care. Hospital-at-Home (HaH) solutions are a form of telehealth that provide an in-patient care experience in patients’ homes, offering the potential for improved outcomes. While these are desirable benefits, HaH involves privacy and cybersecurity risks by introducing hospital-grade medical or biometric devices and information systems outside the hospital’s direct control (i.e., the patient’s home). Patient homes increasingly feature Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as voice assistants (e.g., smart speakers), as part of a broader “smart home” ecosystem. These devices may not have capabilities that support privacy and security practices and may be used as pivot points for attackers to gain access to a hospital’s information system.

This paper introduces a notional high-level smart home integration reference architecture to better understand these risks. Building on NIST’s prior work in telehealth security, it examines privacy and cybersecurity risks associated with HaH deployments in the context of an integrated smart home environment, focusing on voice assistants (e.g., smart speakers) as a representative IoT device and outlines several sample threat events.

To address these risks, this paper leverages the NIST Cybersecurity and Privacy Frameworks and NIST IoT Core Baseline to outline mitigation efforts for healthcare delivery organizations. The recommended mitigations include access control, authentication, continuous monitoring, data security, governance, and network segmentation.

These recommended mitigation efforts adopt NIST frameworks and guidelines. For example, it highlights actions healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) can take to isolate HaH equipment from other personally owned devices within the patient’s home to safeguard sensitive data. Without such protections, compromised, personally owned devices and voice assistants (e.g., smart speakers) may lead to unauthorized access to healthcare systems and patient information.