Boozhoo News River Readers,

This week we’re welcoming spring from all the places we call home! The Spring Equinox is the official start of spring, and this year it falls on March 20. The sun warms Mother Earth so she can give life. We hope you’re feeling the warm return - wherever you are. 

This week’s stories include: 

• Preventing AI extractivism: the case for braiding indigenous data justice with ABS for stronger AI data governance

• In ‘Gatineau,’ Indigenous leaders celebrate belongings returned from the Vatican: ‘We welcome them home’

• Safeguarding First Nations through data sovereignty

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Why it matters: Community archives deal with more than files and folders. The materials carry relationships between artifacts, stories, people, places, and cultural context that don't fit into rigid categories. Niiwin, our data platform and application builder, supports these complex relationships at the foundation level.

Key points:

• Manage, store and organise your records like photographs, audio recordings, video interviews, historical documents, and physical artifact records in a single searchable archive — with metadata, cultural context, and access permissions built in.

• Governance controls so your community decides what knowledge is shared and with whom. Sensitivity-based permissions protect Survivor stories, respect family privacy, and honour traditional protocols about who can view specific knowledge.

• Community members, researchers, and authorised users find materials through search tools built around tags, categories, date ranges, people, and custom metadata fields you define. Results always respect your governance controls.

To learn more: Go to Niiwin’s Custom Community Archives 

Curated Articles:

Preventing AI extractivism: the case for braiding indigenous data justice with ABS for stronger AI data governance

Artificial-intelligence systems are rapidly reproducing colonial extractivism by harvesting Indigenous linguistic, biometric, geospatial, and ecological data without consent, compensation, or accountability. Biotechnology offers a blueprint for curbing such practices: the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Nagoya Protocol obligate users of genetic resources to obtain Prior Informed Consent, negotiate Mutually Agreed Terms, and share benefits fairly. No comparable framework restrains the digital appropriation that underpins many AI products. Consequently, corporations and states monetize Indigenous knowledge systems under the banners of “open data” and “scientific neutrality,” eroding rights affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). In response to this rising risk of AI extractivism, we make the case for a binding, sui generis ABS protocol for AI data governance.

In ‘Gatineau,’ Indigenous leaders celebrate belongings returned from the Vatican: ‘We welcome them home’

Smudge smoke wafted through the Canadian Museum of History’s grand hall last week, as dozens of Indigenous cultural belongings made their homecoming from the Vatican Museums archive. Dozens of First Nations chiefs, leaders and supporters from across the country gathered at the “Gatineau, Que.” museum on March 10 as five of the artifacts were ceremonially uncrated. Another 47 items were held back to share in a private ceremony later that day. Sixty-two items in total were returned on Dec. 6 by Pope Leo XIV and will be transferred to their Indigenous home communities in “Canada” once they are all identified. In a press conference after the event, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said that the process of repatriation has been challenging. Indigenous-owned belongings and ancestral art are housed in museums, archives and institutions all over the world, and AFN leadership has been a driving force behind the push for their repatriation. “It wasn’t easy for First Nations. It was a very difficult process as national chief,” she said, and added that “it was a lot easier with the Vatican than it was sometimes within our own country.”

Indigenous AI Framework Offers Path for Māori in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in everyday life, Māori technology expert Karaitiana Taiuru is urging Aotearoa to ensure Indigenous perspectives guide how these powerful systems are designed, governed and used. Taiuru has developed an Indigenous Peoples AI framework titled He Tangata, He Karetao, He Ātārangi, a model intended to help Māori communities evaluate whether artificial intelligence systems align with tikanga and uphold Māori data sovereignty. The framework arrives at a time when AI technologies are rapidly expanding across government services, education systems and commercial platforms. Taiuru says that while these tools can offer significant benefits, they also raise serious questions about control, ethics and the protection of Indigenous knowledge. A central focus of the framework is helping Māori organisations, iwi and communities assess whether an AI system respects cultural values and protects the integrity of Māori data. This includes examining how information is collected, stored and used, and whether Māori retain authority over knowledge that originates from their communities.

Safeguarding First Nations through data sovereignty

Kevin Kozielec, cyber security facilitator for AFOA, says his presentation focused on the digital world for First Nation organizations and some tips and tricks that participants could implement or ask their IT people to implement in their community or organization. “Our focus is really on trying to make sure IT understands that their job is no longer just IT,” Kozielec says. “You’re really the new guardians of the data because you have to make sure that as we get our data back and we move more into the data sovereignty piece, protecting that data and being the new guardians of that data, you have to make sure you understand the best security practices to be able to protect that data.” Kozielec says he stressed the importance of having good habits in order to stay safe when using IT.

Bell Canada to begin construction on Canada's largest AI data centre near Regina this spring

Telecom giant says the centre will generate $12 billion for Saskatchewan's economy, 80 permanent jobs. Bell Canada will start construction this spring on what it says will be Canada’s largest AI data centre, located on the outskirts of Regina. Mirko Bibic, CEO of Bell Canada, said the telecom giant will partner with the Saskatchewan government and George Gordon First Nation as it spends $1.7 billion to construct the data centre. Bell Canada’s news release said the data centre includes a partnership with the nearby George Gordon First Nation as well as a working relationship with Saskatchewan Polytechnic and the University of Regina. Chief Shawn Longman of George Gordon First Nation confirmed the First Nation had signed a memorandum of understanding with Bell Canada.