Welcome to TfD Weekly

Welcome all!

TfD Weekly is the newsletter of Technologists for Democracy (TfD), a Toronto-based civic tech organisation working at the intersection of technology, privacy, and democratic accountability. Each week we recap what's happening at Civic Tech Toronto, share updates on our campaigns, and keep an eye on legislation that affects Canadians' digital rights.

Our active campaigns:

• Stop Cineplex from Facial Detection
• People's Consultation on AI

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Civic Tech Toronto

This week at Civic Tech Toronto, Ahmed Nadar presented SolveTO, the pothole reporting tool he built. Ahmed is well known in civic tech circles, in part for his viral posts on X breaking down how much faster civic reporting can be. His demo showed the gap plainly: reporting a pothole through the City of Toronto's 311 process can mean 20 or more fields and a long wait, while SolveTO gets a report in front of the city and your councillor in about 30 seconds.

TfD meets every Tuesday at Civic Tech Toronto.

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Waymo in Canada

Our open letter on Waymo's push into Canada will get its public release tomorrow, July 16th. It has been created with close consultation and feedback from advocacy groups, policy experts and concerned citizens in addition to members of our community.

If you're subscribed to the newsletter, you'll get it right in your inbox the moment it goes live. If you know anyone whose livelihood relies on the ride-share industry like Uber or Lyft, do forward them this email so they can sign up ahead of our release tomorrow.

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Find Us Online

Follow TfD on Mastodon:

Technologists for Democracy (@[email protected]) - TheCanadian.Social

7 Posts, 24 Following, 72 Followers · We are Canadians keeping tech accountable. Canadians using technology towards better democracy for all

Follow TfD on LinkedIn: Technologists for Democracy

Follow TfD on Instagram: techfordemocracy

Follow TfD on Bluesky: techfordemocracy.bsky.social

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Until next time,

The TfD Team