Law Bytes

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 world have taken note of the trend and come together to issue a public letter warning about the privacy, safety and discrimination risks associated with these technologies. Ian Goldberg, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Privacy Enhancing Technologies at the University of Waterloo, was one of the signatories. Ian has long been engaged at the intersection between technology and privacy and joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the age assurance technologies, how privacy enhancing technologies could address some of the concerns, and the risks with current legislative approaches.

Last spring, the government quietly inserted provisions that exempt political parties from the application of privacy protections in Bill C-4, an “affordability measures” bill. The government barely acknowledged the provision in its the study of the bill at the House of Commons and refused to even hear witnesses on the issue. The Senate didn’t play along however. It conducted hearings on the privacy rules and the Senators didn’t like what they heard, amending the bill by including a sunset clause on the privacy provisions that gives that the government three years to come up with something better. The bill heads back to the House of Commons, where the government can either accept the change and have the bill pass or reject the change and send it back again to the Senate. This Law Bytes podcast episode tells the story of what the Senate heard on Bill C-4. It is what the government did not want Canadians to hear and would prefer to ignore altogether. There were witnesses from advocacy groups, but the episode focuses on testimony from privacy commissioners (current and former) along with Elections Canada leadership.

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 Law Bytes podcast is a bit different from the norm. Building off my Globe and Mail op-ed, I walk through what has happened thus far, examine the potential policy responses, and explain why both the Online Harms Act and current AI legislative models are poorly suited to this problem, and argue that Canada instead needs to start thinking seriously instead about an AI Transparency Act.

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 258: Jaxson Khan With an Insider Perspective on AI Policy Development in Canada

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 toward a national AI strategy. The consultation garnered some criticism for its speed and missing perspectives on the expert panel.  More recently on the use of AI to assess the results have sparked further doubts about it.

Jaxson Khan is the CEO and Founder of Aperature AI and a Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. But before that, he served as Senior Policy Advisor the Minister of Innovation Science and Industry, where AI was one of his lead responsibilities. Jaxson joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide an insider perspective on AI policy development along with his thoughts on the AI consultation and its results.

Social media bans for younger users have begun to take hold in various countries, particularly in Europe. In Canada, Bill S-209 may ostensibly be about underage access to pornography sites, but the bill’s proponents seem positively giddy at the prospect of a broader application to social media. This trend started in Australia, which passed a social media ban for those under 16 in late 2024 with the law taking effect just a couple of months ago.
Lisa Given is the Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology or RMIT in Melbourne, Australia. She has been closely tracking and commenting on the Australian legislation and she joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss its origins, how the law functions, the concerns it has raised, and what lessons Canada might draw from the experience to date.