Overview
- The federal government introduced Bill C-34 on Wednesday, proposing to block social‑media accounts for users under 16 while allowing platforms to seek exemptions if a new Digital Safety Commission finds they meet child‑safety standards.
- The bill requires platforms to label AI‑generated and bot‑driven harmful content and imposes duties on chatbot providers to reduce risk and implement crisis‑intervention protocols, but it does not bar children from using chatbots.
- Age verification is placed initially on social‑media companies, which must destroy verification data after use, a choice that has prompted concerns about collecting government IDs or biometric data and the privacy safeguards needed.
- Experts and some provincial officials say the bill leaves key details to future regulations, lacks mandatory reporting rules for violent content, and may be hard to enforce in practice because users can use VPNs or migrate to smaller services.
- The proposed regulator could levy fines up to C$10 million or 3% of global revenue, officials expect about a year for passage and roughly 18 months to stand up the commission, and the law will be formally reviewed after three years.