The question of online regulation continues to be controversial. How do we protect Canadians online, particularly children, while also protecting freedom of expression? One important piece of this is protecting young people from pornography and sexual exploitation. A recent private member’s bill seeks to take positive steps in that direction.

On September 16, 2024, MP Michelle Rempel Garner introduced Bill C-412, the Promotion of Safety in the Digital Age Act, which seeks to protect young people online and to combat deepfake pornography.

Protecting Minors

Bill C-412 would require social media operators to take steps to protect minors online. This would mean ensuring that their personal data is not used in a manner that compromises their privacy and well-being. Operators would be required to take steps to prevent or mitigate the effects of online harassment, sexual violence, sexual images of a minor, the promotion of services or products that are illegal for minors, promotion of self-harm, encouraging addiction-like behaviours, and predatory marketing practices. This duty would impact the way algorithms, advertisements, and personal data are used.

The operator would also be required to provide parents of a minor using the platform with safety settings on its platform. The default setting would be the highest level of protection, but parents can opt-out of certain safety settings. These settings would relate to privacy, data deletion, time limits, and preventing purchases and financial transactions. If the user is under 16, the operator must get express consent from the parent for the child to use the platform.

Operators would use technology like computer algorithms to detect, within the ability of technology, a person’s age. Bill C-412 would prohibit operators from using personal data to facilitate advertising products that are unlawful for minors and would allow parents to opt out of personalized recommendations based on algorithms.  Parents and children would have access to a reporting mechanism to report online harms or risks to minors.

The operator would be required to have an independent review conducted every two years regarding the platform’s effects on minors. These findings must be made publicly available. Every year, an operator must prepare a report including how many minors visit the site, what systems are in place to protect minors, how many reports of harm it received from users, and how those issues have been addressed. Operators would receive a financial penalty if they are found to have contravened the Act.

Users who claim to have suffered serious harm would be permitted to bring action against the operator. Serious harm includes physical or psychological harm, substantial damage to reputation or relationships, and substantial economic loss.

False Intimate Images

The second part Bill C-412 would amend the Criminal Code to prohibit false intimate images. These images are often called deepfake pornography, where images are edited or altered to falsely depict a person in an intimate way. It would clarify that illegal non-consensual pornography includes such images.

The bill would also increase the maximum criminal penalty for the sharing of non-consensual intimate images and would update the existing crime of criminal harassment to address the ease and anonymity of harassment online.

We’ve written in the past on the importance – and limitations – of governments combatting deepfake pornography. We’ve also written about British Columbia and Manitoba combatting the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. While some provinces have been combatting deepfake porn, the Criminal Code has not been updated to clearly prohibit it. Such an update is critical since artificial intelligence (AI) technology has developed to a point where people and their images can be misrepresented in horrible ways.

Accountability for social media companies

Bill C-412, the Promotion of Safety in the Digital Age Act, would place more responsibility on social media companies to protect children online, while also giving parents the tools to manage their child’s online use. The federal government included some similar elements in Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, such as a duty to act responsibly and to protect children. ARPA previously wrote about positive elements of that bill in combatting pornography. Bill C-412 would address online harm, but without a new government bureaucracy. Unlike Bill C-63, Bill C-412 would not re-enact the hate speech provision of the Canada Human Rights Act or make hate crime-related amendments to the Criminal Code.

Also unlike Bill C-63, Bill C-412 would give social media users a right to take legal action against social media operators. In addition to potential fines, the threat of legal action incentivizes social media companies to implement better protections for young people online.

Bill C-412’s approach to parental oversight of children’s internet use is important. Ensuring that social media companies give parents tools to apply safety settings, privacy settings, and limit their child’s social media use recognizes parents’ primary responsibility and authority to raise their children, and that includes how they manage a child’s internet use. The bill seeks to give parents the tools to adjust safety and privacy settings and choose which settings are most appropriate for their child. Much of the content of Bill C-412 is similar to the Kids Online Safety Act in the United States, which recently passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 91-3. Hopefully such bipartisan support for better internet regulation can be found in Canada as well.

Follow the progress

Private members’ bills undergo a long process before they become law, and as a result often do not pass. But we are encouraged to see an effort to combat pornography, to better protect young people on the internet, and to recognize the responsibility of parents in managing their children’s online use. We can continue to encourage MPs and candidates to support good policies that combat pornography and are thankful to see another good piece of legislation proposed. For future updates and information about this and other bills that we are following, visit our Legislation to Watch page.