Age verification, estimation or inference is seemingly all the rage right now. Vendors are promoting it as the solution to thorny challenges to limit access to certain sites and services and politicians are eager to legislate in that direction, including in Canada with Bill S-209.
Hundreds of scientists and technology experts from around the
The decades-long battle over lawful access entered a new phase yesterday with the introduction of Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act. This bill follows the attempt last spring to bury lawful access provisions in Bill C-2, a border measures bill that was the new government’s first piece of substantive legislation. The lawful access
In the wake of reports that AI Minister Evan Solomon may press AI companies such as OpenAI to more aggressively report potential safety risks identified in private chats to law enforcement, attention has quickly turned to the Online Harms Act as a potential regulatory solution. The Online Harms Act or Bill C-63, died
My Globe and Mail op-ed begins by noting that AI Minister Evan Solomon summoned executives from OpenAI to Ottawa last week to explain why the company declined to alert police that it had flagged the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar, the Tumbler Ridge shooter who killed eight people earlier this month. The company stopped short
Over the past ten days, Canada has witnessed one of the fastest-moving technology policy debates in recent memory. What began as reporting about a tragic act of violence – the shootings in Tumbler Ridge, BC – quickly evolved into questions about AI safety, corporate responsibility, police reporting obligations, and now potential AI regulation.
This week’s
Earlier this month, the government quietly released a “what we heard” report this discussing the response to its 30-day sprint AI consultation from last October. The consultation was promoted as giving Canadians – including a 28 person expert advisory board – the chance to provide their views on AI as the AI Minister Evan Solomon works
Critics of Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne’s successive bills that ostensibly target pornography sites have for years warned of the privacy and equity risks that arise from mandated age verification and the dangers of over broad legislation that would extend far beyond pornography sites by covering social media, search, and AI services. The Senate committee reviewing the
The government quietly released a “what we heard” report this week discussing the response to its 30-day sprint AI consultation from last October. Described as the “largest public consultation in the history of ISED”, the report relies heavily on AI for its analysis as the government notes that it used “Cohere Command A, OpenAI GPT-5
The government has confirmed that it has no plans to create a national identification system. The issue arose in a sessional paper response released this week to a question from Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu. Gladu asked “With regard to the government’s implementation of a digital identification that will be mandatory to access government services and
The Canadian government has responded to three reports focused on digital policies from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, shedding new light on potential future policies and priorities. The three reports – on tech giants, local media, and harms caused by illegal sexually explicit materials posted online – recommended a wide range of