{"id":99141,"date":"2026-07-08T15:57:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/99141\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T15:57:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:57:25","slug":"canadian-officials-eye-legal-action-against-openai-in-wake-of-mass-shooting-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/99141\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian officials eye legal action against OpenAI in wake of mass shooting \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Jessica Kim, Bloomberg<\/p>\n<p>British Columbia is exploring legal action against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/tag\/OpenAI\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI<\/a> for its failure to alert authorities to threats made on ChatGPT before the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/02\/10\/shooter-in-canada-kills-9-people-and-injures-25-others-at-a-school-and-home\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February mass shooting in the town of Tumbler Ridge.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will pursue every available avenue to hold OpenAI and its decision-makers accountable,\u201d Niki Sharma, BC\u2019s attorney general, said in a statement Tuesday. \u201cWe are taking this step because there are serious concerns about<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/04\/29\/openai-sued-by-families-of-canada-school-shooting-victims\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> OpenAI\u2019s failure to notify law enforcement<\/a> after threats were flagged on its platform.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/02\/27\/openai-says-canada-mass-shooter-evaded-ban-with-second-chatgpt-account\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OpenAI says Canada mass shooter evaded ban with second ChatGPT account<\/a><\/p>\n<p>OpenAI and Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman already face separate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/04\/29\/openai-sued-by-families-of-canada-school-shooting-victims\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lawsuits from victims of the shooting and their families.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Police alleged that Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, killed eight people and injured 27 before taking her own life in one of Canada\u2019s worst mass shootings.<\/p>\n<p>OpenAI flagged Van Rootselaar\u2019s ChatGPT account in June 2025 \u2014 several months before the shooting \u2014 by systems that check for misuse, including potential violent activity. The company banned the account, but said it did not meet the threshold for referral to law enforcement at the time. After the shooting, the company contacted Canadian authorities.<\/p>\n<p>In February, OpenAI told Canadian lawmakers that, under newly updated company rules, it would have told police about the account earlier. Altman also apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community in a letter in April.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe events in Tumbler Ridge are a tragedy. We have a zero-tolerance policy for using our tools to assist in committing violence,\u201d OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in an email, citing its enhanced referral protocol.<\/p>\n<p>BC has retained lawyers locally and in California.<\/p>\n<p>More stories like this are available on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bloomberg.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jessica Kim, Bloomberg British Columbia is exploring legal action against OpenAI for its failure to alert authorities&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[25,2857,309,970,11733,46467,2853,10227,10432,66,157,7712,969,7713,134,1246],"class_list":["post-99141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bay-area","tag-business","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mass-shootings","tag-morning-wire","tag-news","tag-openai","tag-peninsula","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-county","tag-technology","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}