New funding brings digital safety training for seniors to Kawartha Lakes

Local MPP, Laurie Scott, and Ampere recently announced new funding to help deliver community workshops to seniors and elders in rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous communities across Ontario, including here in Kawartha Lakes.

The Civil Remedies Grant Program has given Ampere more than $160,000 for these workshops, that will focus on making seniors more aware of online scams. “In today’s increasingly digital world, helping people stay safe online is more important than ever,” Scott said

The grant is allocating $5 million across Ontario in cash and proceeds seized from criminals to help 27 law enforcement agencies and community and Indigenous organizations to fight crime and strengthen public safety across the province.

Ampere’s new Connected and Protected program will help seniors build digital literacy skills, including how to recognize online scams, phishing attempts, fraud, and unsafe digital behaviours.

“It’s a frontline prevention, intervention, and support that is about building safer communities on our part,” said Scott.

Ampere CEO Ryan Oliver said in a digital age, it’s important to help educate seniors on what could potentially be a scam. “It’s building the digital skills needed to understand when someone’s trying to fool you, and so a big part of that, moving forward, is going to be AI. Recognizing deep fakes, recognizing the improper use of artificial intelligence in order to get something out of you.”

Much of the programing for these workshops has been inspired by a program Ampere offered in Nunavut called Connected Elders. The program worked to teach elders basic digital skills, such as online banking and facetiming. “That program was built as AI was just starting to rear its head in, so we didn’t focus on it,” Oliver said.

Oliver hopes through these workshops, people in the community can be protected from increasingly realistic scams. “(Scams are) going to just continue to happen as large language models become more and more adept at falsifying who they’re representing, and especially as image creation becomes that much more realistic, and it’s something to stay on top of.”

For more information go to amp.ca, Ampere will also be working with their community partners to spread the word about these workshops.