Tech issues: 1)Canadian Tire says recent breach of e-commerce database involved customer info; 2)Annoyed by junk calls to your iPhone? Try the new iOS 26 call screen feature

1)Canadian Tire says recent breach of e-commerce database involved customer info

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Tara Deschamps, October 15, 2025

A Canadian Tire logo is displayed on a store in Ottawa on Friday, Aug. 11, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Shoppers who made online purchases through Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. may have had their personal information compromised.

The retailer said Monday that it identified a data breach on Oct. 2 involving information stored in its e-commerce database.

The breached information belongs to shoppers who had an e-commerce account with Canadian Tire or its other banners, SportChek, Mark’s/L’Équipeur and Party City.

The data included names, addresses, emails and birth years as well as encrypted passwords and in some cases, incomplete credit card numbers. The credit card information that was available was akin to what would appear on store receipt, Canadian Tire said.

The full dates of birth for fewer than 150,000 account holders were also part of the breach. Those customers whose additional information was involved will be contacted and offered credit monitoring from TransUnion Canada, Canadian Tire said.

The breached information did not include Canadian Tire Bank or Triangle Rewards loyalty data and was not enough for anyone unauthorized to access accounts and make purchases, the retailer said.

It added that the incident did not impact its ability to facilitate in-store transactions and its e-commerce systems are operational.

Since discovering the breach, Canadian Tire said it has resolved the vulnerability and is working with experts to improve security.

“All of our websites and systems continue to be monitored closely by internal teams and external cybersecurity experts,” the retailer told customers on a web page set up to provide information about the breach.

“There is no indication of any ongoing unauthorized activity.”

The company told customers that if they do not receive an email from TransUnion Canada on behalf of Canadian Tire, they don’t need to take further action.

However, it reminded shoppers that it is always a good practice to use strong, unique passwords, avoid reusing passwords and enable multi-factor authentication.

“If you notice anything suspicious, contact your financial institution and report any fraud to police,” Canadian Tire said.

Statistics Canada data show the number of police-reported cybercrimes in the country hit 92,567 last year, up from 65,141 in 2020. Fraud alone made up 46,301 of those crimes, while identity theft accounted for 957 and identity fraud 4,283.

Experts have long said cybercrime is under-reported because of the stigma and embarrassment that can be associated with being scammed.

Cybersecurity issues have been reported in the last year at Nova Scotia Power, the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, B.C., and PowerSchool, the maker of education software used by many schools.

2)Annoyed by junk calls to your iPhone? Try the new iOS 26 call screen feature

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Kelvin Chan, October 10, 2025

iPhone users have a new tool to combat the scourge of nuisance phone calls: a virtual gatekeeper that can screen incoming calls from unknown numbers.

It’s among the bevy of new features that Apple rolled out with last month’s release of iOS 26. The screening feature has been getting attention because of the ever-increasing amount of robocalls and spam calls that leave many phone users feeling harassed.

Here’s a run-through of the new function:

How to activate call screening

First, you’ll need to update your iPhone’s operating system to iOS 26, which is available to the iPhone 11 and newer models.

To switch call screening on, go into Settings–Apps—Phone. Scroll down and you’ll find a new option: Screen Unknown Callers.

You’ll be presented with three choices. The Never option lets any unknown call ring through, while Silence sends all unidentified numbers directly to voicemail. What you want to tap is the middle option: Ask Reason for Calling.

If the option isn’t there, try restarting your phone.

I still couldn’t find it after updating to iOS 26, but, after some online sleuthing, I checked my region and language settings because I saw some online commenters reporting they had to match. It turns out my region was still set to Hong Kong, where I lived years ago. I switched it to the United Kingdom, which seemed to do the trick and gave me the updated menu.

How it works

Call screening introduces a layer between you and new callers.

When someone who’s not in your contacts list dials your number, a Siri-style voice will ask them to give their name and the purpose of their call.

At the same time, you’ll get a notification that the call is being screened. When the caller responds, the answers will be transcribed and the conversation will pop up in speech bubbles.

You can then answer the call.

Don’t want to answer? Send a reply by tapping one of the pre-written messages, such as “I’ll call you later” or “Send more information,” which the AI voice will read out to the caller.

Or you can type out your own message for the computer-generated voice to read out.

If you don’t respond right away, the phone will continue to ring while you decide what to do.

Teething troubles

In theory, call screening is a handy third way between the nuclear option of silencing all unknown callers — including legitimate ones — or letting them all through.

But it doesn’t always work perfectly, according to Associated Press colleagues and anecdotal reports from social media users.

One AP employee said she was impressed with how seamlessly it worked. Another said it’s handy for screening out cold callers who found his number from marketing databases.

“However, it’s not great when delivery drivers try to call me and then just hang up,” he added.

Some internet users have similar complaints, complaining that important calls that they were expecting from their auto mechanic or plumber didn’t make it through. Perhaps the callers assumed it was an answering machine and didn’t seem to realize they had to stay on the line and interact with it.

I encountered a different issue the first time it kicked in for me, when an unknown caller — whether mistakenly or not — threw me off by giving my name instead of theirs. So I answered because I assumed it was someone I knew, forgetting that I could tap out a reply asking them again for their name.

The caller turned out to be someone who had obtained my name and number and was trying to get me to do a survey. I had to make my excuses and hang up.

If you don’t like call screening, you can turn it off at any time.

As for Android

Apple is catching up with Google, which introduced a similar automatic call screening feature years ago for Pixel users in the United States.

Last month, the company announced the feature is rolling out to users in three more countries: Australia, Canada and Ireland.

If it’s not already on, go to your Phone app’s Settings and look for Call Screen.

Google’s version is even more automated. When someone you don’t know calls, the phone will ask who it is and why they’re calling. It will hang up if it determines that it’s a junk call, but let calls it deems to be legit ring through.

Google warns that not all spam calls and robocalls can be detected, nor will it always fully understand and transcribe what a caller says.

Samsung, too, lets users of its Galaxy Android phones screen calls by using its AI assistant Bixby’s text call function, which works in a similar way.