GME3: Props Prognosis, Face-Off Over AI Cameras & Deadlines and Datasets

In this week’s GME3, a Windsor hospital CEO is sounding the alarm on what he calls a growing public-health crisis driven by wall-to-wall sports betting ads; in Edmonton, police are pressing ahead with AI-powered facial-recognition bodycams despite the province’s privacy commissioner warning they’re offside the law; and in Ontario, a coalition of major news publishers has cleared an early legal hurdle in its copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, keeping the high-stakes fight over AI training data in a Canadian courtroom. Read the full stories below!

Gambling

Props Prognosis

Windsor hospital CEO Bill Marra, who oversees a problem gambling and digital dependency program at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, has issued an open letter calling for stronger action on online sports betting advertising. He says money has flowed “generously” to gambling platforms, advertisers and governments, while harms are mounting. Attendance in his program’s inpatient and outpatient streams has doubled in five years, and Marra links that to the high exposure to gambling ads during live sports and online content, especially for people already vulnerable to addiction.

Marra argues it is unrealistic to eliminate online gambling but says governments and regulators must better mitigate risk through tighter controls on advertising and more funding for treatment, describing gambling as an under-recognized health-care crisis. He notes the program has seen families break down, bankruptcies and even self-harm linked to gambling losses.

His call comes as more than 40 Canadian senators, led by Percy Downe and Marty Deacon, urge the prime minister to ban sports betting ads altogether, comparing them to now-prohibited tobacco marketing and warning that young men under 25 are particularly affected. Former MP Brian Masse, who once pushed for legal single-event sports betting to curb the black market, now says more of the resulting revenue must support those harmed and that gambling commercials and on-air betting talk should not dominate sports broadcasts.

In response, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario says it already enforces some of North America’s strictest online gambling ad rules, including bans on athletes and celebrities and on bonus offers, and pledges to keep working to protect minors and vulnerable people.

Media

Face-Off Over AI Cameras

Edmonton police have begun testing body-worn cameras equipped with AI-powered facial recognition without first obtaining approval from Alberta’s information and privacy commissioner, Diane McLeod – a move she says does not comply with privacy law.

The pilot, launched on Wednesday, involves up to 50 officers already using cameras supplied by U.S.-based Axon Enterprise. Edmonton Police Service (“EPS”) says it is the first police force in the world to test Axon’s facial recognition bodycam technology, which it claims will only be used during active investigations or enforcement.

EPS argues it does not legally need the commissioner’s approval at this “proof of concept” stage. A spokesperson said that under the regulations, they are required only to submit a privacy impact assessment (“PIA”), not wait for feedback before starting the pilot. Police say they have met that requirement, noting the PIA was sent to the commissioner’s office on Tuesday, the day before the pilot began, and framing the early submission as an effort at transparency.

McLeod strongly disagrees, stating that there is “no exception in the act for pilots.” She says any collection, use or disclosure of personal information – including during technology testing – must go through the full privacy assessment process before proceeding. In her view, the law applies “no matter what phase of your technology testing you’re in.”

The commissioner’s office has received the PIA and is now reviewing it, but has said it will not comment further until that review is complete, leaving a clear public dispute over how privacy rules should apply to emerging police surveillance technologies.

Entertainment

Deadlines and Datasets

An Ontario court has ruled that a major copyright lawsuit brought by Canadian news publishers against OpenAI can proceed in the province. The case, filed a year ago, was launched by a coalition of major outlets including The Canadian Press, Torstar, The Globe and Mail, Postmedia, and CBC/Radio-Canada. The publishers allege that OpenAI has been using their news content to train ChatGPT, infringing copyright and profiting from their work without permission or compensation.

OpenAI tried to stop the case from moving forward in Ontario by raising a jurisdictional challenge. It argued that the company is not based in Ontario, does not conduct business there, and that the alleged activities, such as training its AI models and crawling web content, occurred outside the province. On that basis, OpenAI said any legal dispute should be heard in a U.S. court instead.

However, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice rejected that argument and found that it does have jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit. That means the case will now continue through the Ontario court system, rather than being redirected to the United States. The decision is a key early victory for the news organizations, keeping their claims in a Canadian forum as they seek to challenge how AI companies use journalistic content in building commercial products.