Post Tagged with: "age verification"

Roblox Maths Obstacle course by Alpha https://flic.kr/p/2nerG5y CC BY-NC 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 261: Ian Goldberg on the Privacy Risks of Age Assurance Technologies

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 technology, how privacy enhancing technologies could address some of the concerns, and the risks with current legislative approaches.

Read more ›

March 16, 2026 — 2 comments — Podcasts
Instagram and TikTok logos displayed on a laptop by Cure Media https://flic.kr/p/2mdTmeZ CC BY 2.0

Court Ordered Social Media Site Blocking Coming to Canada?: Trojan Horse Online Harms Bill Clears Senate Committee Review

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 latest iteration of those bill – Bill S-209 – met yesterday to conduct a clause-by-clause review of the bill. That the bill passed through committee pending some supplementary remarks was not a surprise. However, that the privacy and equity concerns barely merited a mention and that regulating social media sites was viewed as feature not a bug was a wake up call.

Read more ›

February 6, 2026 — 6 comments — News
Nooooes! by Andrew Currie https://flic.kr/p/c2do3S CC BY-SA 2.0

The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 247: My Senate Appearance on the Bill That Could Lead to Canada-Wide Blocking of X, Reddit and ChatGPT

Bill S-209, the legislative effort to establish age verification requirements for sites and services that are said to facilitate access to pornography, is back. The bill has some modest improvements from the earlier S-210, but the core concerns – overbroad scope that lumps in social media companies, Internet providers, and AI services with pornography sites, the privacy and equity implications of mandated age verification, and the use of nationwide website blocking – remain. Last week, I appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs where I identified many of the concerns with the bill and engaged in a detailed discussion with multiple senators. This week’s Law Bytes podcast goes inside the hearing room for my opening statement and the Q&A with Senators that followed.

Read more ›

October 27, 2025 — 13 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.

Read more ›

October 15, 2025 — 10 comments — News
The Day I Knew I Was Old ;) by artistmac https://flic.kr/p/jnHv7a CC BY-SA 2.0

Risky Business: The Legal and Privacy Concerns of Mandatory Age Verification Technologies

When the intersection of law and technology presents seemingly intractable new challenges, policy makers often bet on technology itself to solve the problem. Whether countering copyright infringement with digital locks, limiting access to unregulated services with website blocking, or deploying artificial intelligence to facilitate content moderation, there is a recurring hope the answer to the policy dilemma lies in better technology. While technology frequently does play a role, experience suggests that the reality is far more complicated as new technologies also create new risks and bring unforeseen consequences. So too with the emphasis on age verification technologies as a magical solution to limiting under-age access to adult content online. These technologies offer some promise, but the significant privacy and accuracy risks that could inhibit freedom of expression are too great to ignore.

The Hub runs a debate today on the mandated use of age verification technologies. I argue against it in a slightly shorter version of this post. Daniel Zekveld of the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada makes the case for it in this post.

Read more ›

July 9, 2025 — 5 comments — Columns
1 2 3