- LAC Attempted Hack
On October 1, CBC, Reuters, Global News and other outlets reported that the AI research firm Transluce said AI agents attempted to access an LAC website/search service on May 28 and June 9, 2026. The reported goal was to retrieve Canadian divorce records from roughly 1905–1911; the agents reportedly queried an LAC database hundreds of times. The tactics resembled prior activity attributed to OpenAI which was reported to be reviewing the claim. According to government sources there was no indication that systems had been compromised. - Shannon Lecture
A reminder that Preserving Unremarkable Videogames with Dany Guay-Bélanger is scheduled for next Tuesday, 13 October at 7 PM. It’s live in the Pallerin Room at LAC and online. More information here. - What’s in Collection Search?
As of 6 October there are 7,952,178 (7,944,445 on 29 September) items in the Archives section of Collection Search, 8,227,688 (no change) in the Genealogy section, 4,440,715 (4,439,575) in Library, including 54,334 theses, and 353,360 (352,754) in Images.
Since I started monitoring these changes on 5 September:Archives experienced the highest volume of growth, consistently adding new items every week for a total increase of over 21,000 items.
Library content grew steadily by over 16,000 items,
Images saw minor but consistent weekly growth, adding nearly 700 new items over the month.
Genealogy remained completely stagnant, fluctuating by only a single item and showing zero growth during the latter half of September and early October.
Now if the AI agents making the queries to the Library and Archives Canada site had been a member of Ontario Ancestors, they could have downloaded the two PDFs that make up the “Index to Canadian Parliamentary Divorces, 1867-1930” by J. Brian Gilchrist and Nancy J. Duffy to get the information and then process it offline with practically no one the wiser. Of course, it still probably would have been in violation of some sort of use agreement.