Bill C-34, which would ban social media accounts for under-16s, is now before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, which just approved plans to hold at least 16 hours of hearings starting the week of November 16th. The government’s position on the bill became clearer during several days of debate last month at the House of Commons, revealing a shift in how MPs describe the ban (it’s now euphemistically called an “exemption model”), how they defend the decision to leave dozens of key issues to future regulations (one implausibly claimed that addressing all the issues would create a 1,500 page bill), and what they think of mandated age verification (some admitted to concerns about it). The takeaway was that the ban and the uncertainty in its implementation will be difficult to defend at committee.
Latest Posts
Surveillance By Design: Government Officials Say Lawful Access Could Reach Gaming Platforms, Daycares and AI Services
Lawful access has long been associated with establishing the rules under which telecom and Internet companies may be required to disclose subscriber information, retain metadata, and install government-mandated surveillance capabilities. Yet the start of the Senate hearing on Bill C-22 this week confirmed again that the bill is about far more than telecom and Internet companies, with government officials acknowledging that the Canadian bill uses broader language than any of the comparable countries they examined. What emerges is surveillance by design, with the bill deliberately structured to cover an exceptionally wide range of services, including gaming platforms with chat functions and AI services. Moreover, the new subscriber information production order covers any service provider, as the Senators discussed the possibility of even scoping in daycare centres.
Canada’s First Digital Trade Agreement: Why the Canada-EU Deal Will Likely Follow Europe’s Template and What That Means for Canadian Digital Law
Last week’s Canada-EU summit in Montreal delivered several new collaborative initiatives as part of Canada’s pivot toward the EU, but among the most notable from a digital policy perspective was the conclusion of negotiations on a Canada-EU Digital Trade Agreement. E-commerce or digital trade chapters are by now common in Canadian trade agreements (including in CUSMA and the CPTPP), but this is Canada’s first standalone digital trade agreement. The possibility of a DTA has long been of interest, as Canada formally requested to join the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement in May 2022, and Global Affairs Canada launched a consultation that same year on developing a model Canadian digital trade agreement. That consultation process did not produce a public model, which means the Canada-EU DTA may emerge as the standard even though it is based on the European approach. While the text is unlikely to be released for months (officials said it is going through a “legal scrub”), there is plenty of room to speculate about what it contains since this will be the third EU DTA and it is likely to follow a similar approach.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 281: Mikolaj Barczentewicz on Europe’s Digital Sovereignty Push, CADA, and the Implications for Canada
Canada’s pivot to Europe took another step at last week’s Canada-EU summit in Montreal, where the two sides launched what they call an “Alliance for the Future.” The announcements ranged from critical minerals and firefighting aircraft to supercomputing and payment systems. The digital commitments received less attention, but they raise many of the same sovereignty questions that have dominated the Canada-U.S. relationship this year. Indeed, the leaders committed to reciprocal access to each other’s cloud and AI markets and concluded Canada’s first Digital Trade Agreement.
Mikołaj Barczentewicz is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Surrey, where he is research director of the Surrey Law and Technology Hub, and a Senior Scholar at the International Center for Law & Economics. His recent work has examined how the EU has addressed cloud and AI policy and what it means for its allies. He joins me on the Law Bytes podcast to discuss Europe’s digital sovereignty push, its proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, and the implications for Canada.
Ofcom Did the Work Canada Plans to Skip: What the UK’s Age Verification Report Reveals About the Bill C-34 Social Media Ban
The most contentious aspect of the government’s Bill C-34 social media ban for under-16s is that millions of Canadians will need mandated age verification to create social media accounts. The bill tacitly acknowledges that this raises privacy concerns, as it includes a mandatory consultation with the Privacy Commissioner and leaves the future Digital Safety Commission to set the necessary standards. But as I wrote in June, the problem is that the government plans to bring the ban into force before the Commission even exists, meaning the age verification will proceed without established standards or the privacy consultation the bill itself requires. The United Kingdom, which is pursuing a similar ban with a spring 2027 start date, has adopted the opposite approach by asking Ofcom, its regulator, to assess what effective age verification would look like before Parliament sets the rules. The resulting report, released this week, is the most candid regulatory account of a social media ban to date. Ofcom identifies four methods capable of establishing whether someone is 16 or over and it finds that each of them requires using photo ID either directly or as the backstop given the ineffectiveness of age estimation for younger users.
Recent Posts
Has the Government Read Its Own Bill? What Three Days of House Debate Revealed About Bill C-34 Before the Committee Hearings Begin - Surveillance By Design: Government Officials Say Lawful Access Could Reach Gaming Platforms, Daycares and AI Services
Canada’s First Digital Trade Agreement: Why the Canada-EU Deal Will Likely Follow Europe’s Template and What That Means for Canadian Digital Law 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 281: Mikolaj Barczentewicz on Europe’s Digital Sovereignty Push, CADA, and the Implications for Canada 
Ofcom Did the Work Canada Plans to Skip: What the UK’s Age Verification Report Reveals About the Bill C-34 Social Media Ban
