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USD Coin 2 by Alpha Photo CC BY-NC 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/2omHuAt

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 246: Mohamed Zohiri on the Rise and Emerging Regulation of Stablecoins

Stablecoins have increasingly begun to enter the mainstream with previously reticent policy makers, regulators, and financial institutions now shifting toward regulatory frameworks that seem more supportive of their development. The U.S. has been the most aggressive with the recent passage of the GENIUS Act, but Canadian officials have taken notice and begun to speak openly about the issue.

Mohamed Zohiri is a Legal Counsel and Fintech Advisor at the Alberta Securities Commission who has focused on stablecoins and their regulation for many years both during his graduate legal work and at the ASC. He joins the Law Bytes podcast to provide an introduction to stablecoins, examines the new U.S. legislation that may spark increased investment, and outlines where Canada currently stands on the issue.

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October 20, 2025 — 2 comments — Podcasts
What's on the blacklist? Three sites that SOPA could put at risk by opensource.com (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/aZhtRV

Senate Bill Would Grant Government Regulatory Power to Mandate Age Verification For Search, Social Media and AI Services Accompanied By Threat of Court Ordered Blocking of Lawful Content

The return of mandated age verification legislation in the Senate – formerly Bill S-210 and now S-209 – has been working its way through a Senate committee with a wide range of witnesses appearing over the past two weeks. I wrote about the new bill in late May, noting that there were some improvements, including an exclusion of sites that “incidentally and not deliberately is used to search for, transmit, download, store or access content that is alleged to constitute pornographic material”. However, I argued that the bill still raised concerns, including the privacy implications of mandated age verification technologies and the establishment of website blocking requirements that would block access to lawful content in Canada. I will be appearing before the committee later this month, but discussion last week at committee merits immediate comment.

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October 15, 2025 — 6 comments — News
lets start over by andrew j. cosgriff CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/6jStC

Government Reverses on Bill C-2: Removes Lawful Access Warrantless Demand Powers in New Border Bill

The government today reversed course on its ill-advised anti-privacy measures in Bill C-2, introducing a new border bill with the lawful access provisions (Parts 14 and 15) removed. The move is welcome given the widespread opposition to provisions that would have created the power to demand warrantless access to information from any provider of a service in Canada and increased the surveillance on Canadian networks. The sheer breadth of this proposed system was truly unprecedented and appeared entirely inconsistent with Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That was the immediate reaction when the bill was tabled in June (my posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Law Bytes podcasts on the topic here, here, and here) and there was never a credible response forthcoming from government officials. Indeed, if anything, meetings with department officials made plain that this was an embarrassingly rushed, poorly drafted piece of legislation that required a reset.

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October 8, 2025 — 8 comments — News
GILLARD_20221013_TIKTOK_074 by IAB UK https://flic.kr/p/2nTrZ7a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Why The Recent TikTok Privacy Ruling Swaps Privacy for Increased Surveillance

Last month, federal privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne, alongside his provincial privacy counterparts from Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia, released the results of a multi-year investigation into TikTok’s privacy practices. As my Hub opinion piece notes, the outcome was never really in doubt—look under the hood of any social media company and you will find some privacy concerns—but what was both surprising and risky was the commissioner’s demand that TikTok engage in increased surveillance of its users in the name of better privacy practices.

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October 8, 2025 — 6 comments — News
Abandoned Border by MTSRS https://flic.kr/p/49aR7g CC BY 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 245: Kate Robertson on Bill C-2’s Cross-Border Data Sharing Privacy Risks

Bill C-2, the government’s proposed lawful access legislation, has been the subject of several prior episodes covering warrantless disclosure of information as part of the new information demand power in Part 14 of the bill as well as some of the surveillance technology capabilities found in Part 15. Those remain major issues, but there is another element of the bill that deserves greater attention, particularly at this moment when the Canada – US relationship is increasingly fraught.  That issue involves mandated data sharing with implications for Canada’s international treaty obligations under the “Second Additional Protocol” to the Budapest Convention as well as the US Cloud Act. Kate Robertson, a lawyer and senior research associate at the Citizen Lab in the Munk School at the University of Toronto, wrote an extensive brief on these issues soon after the bill was introduced. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to talk about a critical Bill C-2 issue that has thus far attracted limited attention.

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October 6, 2025 — 8 comments — Podcasts
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