Canada reintroduces bill S-209 in Parliament for online age verification - following UK’s lead

Canada seems to have an old idea back on the table. Senators reintroduced Bill S-209 this session, a federal push to force online age checks for people trying to access pornographic material. The bill, labelled the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, would make it an offence for organizations to make pornographic content available to anyone under 18 and give authorities tools to block or otherwise stop access. The text of the bill is now live on Parliament’s site.

Senator Garnett Genuis, a vocal proponent of the bill, has been actively campaigning for its passage. He expressed optimism that the bill, which nearly passed in the previous Parliament, will finally succeed this time around. However, his efforts have not been without opposition. During a presentation of this petition, Genuis faced heckling from those who view the bill as an overreach.

The core of the controversy lies in the bill’s potential impact on privacy and anonymity, as it could mandate age verification for a wide range of online content, not just that which is explicitly pornographic. This raises questions about how such a system would be implemented, what data would be collected, and who would have access to it. We’re already seeing Reddit threads and posts on Facebook groups popping up discussing the bill.

You can watch this video by David Fraser, a privacy lawyer, for more details:

The UK has been a trailblazer in this area with its Online Safety Act, which came into full effect recently. This legislation mandates robust age checks for all sites and apps hosting pornography, with the aim of preventing children from accessing such content. As expected, people in the UK are also pushing back against this, as many consider it to be an overreach. Concerns have been raised about the effectiveness of these measures, the potential for privacy infringements, and the rise in VPN usage as users seek to bypass these restrictions. 

Beyond the UK, other regions are also grappling with similar challenges. In the European Union, efforts are underway to develop a blueprint for age verification that allows users to prove their age without revealing personal data. Several EU states are even testing an age verification app to protect children online. While there isn’t a universal legal obligation for age verification across the entire EU yet, various legal acts are pushing for stricter measures.

But wait, we’re still not done in the EU. Recent reports suggest that the EU Parliament is also pushing for new mandatory scanning of private chats. This controversial proposal, often dubbed ‘Chat Control,’ aims to combat child sexual abuse material (CSAM) by requiring messaging services to scan user communications, even encrypted ones. If all goes their way, this could come into play as early as October. 

The United States has also seen a surge in state-level age verification laws, particularly concerning access to adult content. Louisiana, for example, passed a law in 2022 requiring age verification on websites with a substantial portion of adult material. The Supreme Court also recently upheld a Texas age-verification law. Plus, lawmakers are also calling for health warning labels to be added on social media platforms. Just a few days ago, YouTube also announced it’ll start using age estimation technology to try and figure out the age of users automatically and will lock minors out from certain videos and features on the platform.

So it’s clear that this push for online age verification and other “safety” measures isn’t happening in a vacuum. Governments around the world seem to have woken up from a deep slumber and have begun pushing for more regulation on online platforms. We’ll just have to wait and see if the public accepts the regulation or if governments will have to rework these bills to balance out regulation and freedom. Feel free to share your thoughts on this in the comments below.