By: Kelly Chia, Editor-in-Chief
On December 14, 2023, Bill S-210 passed its second reading through the House of Commons. Bill S-210 is an act that restricts “young persons’ online access to sexually explicit material.” However, the way it proposes to do this is troubling: it wants Canadians to verify their age while browsing. The Bill doesn’t specify how it wants Canadians to do this, but could include facial recognition technology or a system tracking our digital identification, making our private identities vulnerable. This Bill doesn’t only impact minors — it impacts the privacy of all Canadians browsing the internet. Asking for identification on websites considered to advertise or commercially sell adult material puts us all at a higher risk of having private information leaked.
Independent Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne introduced this Bill, which was first read in Senate on November 24, 2021. The Bill recognizes that sexually explicit material is “made available on the internet for commercial purposes” and proposes to bring age-verification technology as a solution to prevent youth from accessing sexually explicit material. The Bill is well intentioned in protecting youths. The problem is that this Bill has a much wider impact on internet users as a whole than the youths they suggest it will protect.
Dr. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and expert in internet and e-commerce law, argues Bill S-210 poses significant harm to not only internet users, but also to multiple websites. The Bill broadly condemns “any organization that, for commercial purposes, makes available sexually explicit material on the Internet to a young person.” Geist notes this means the Bill “applies to any site,” including social media websites and search engines, where anyone can upload explicit material. The Bill’s language around sexually explicit content is vague. It notes that “sexually explicit” could include “demeaning material” or anything with sexual content. But it doesn’t describe how much or what kind of sexually explicit content is available on the website for it to require age verification. Asking Canadians to provide identification for a tweet or a Google search is a draconian oversight of our internet usage.
Bill S-210 asserts that online age-verification technology “is increasingly sophisticated and can now effectively ascertain the age of users without breaching their privacy rights,” but does not make clear how it will protect these rights. The Australian government recently rejected online age verification in a similar bill, finding that no available age verification technology could “work reliably” and “balance privacy and security.” It’s this last point I’m especially concerned with as a citizen. It’s noted that the Governor in Council must consider if the method verifiably “destroys any personal information.” There are no penalties listed for websites that fail to do this. This isn’t protection — it leaves many vulnerable people at risk of data leaks.
As with many bills that target internet use, these definitions are too broad to protect us. In fact, they hurt us from using the internet as intended. The task of determining which websites might qualify as “making available sexually explicit material” falls onto a designated “enforcement authority,” like a government agency. If this authority deems it necessary to “ensure that sexually explicit material is not made available,” it can prevent access to all materials, not just those that are sexually explicit. It will not just be young people who would be impacted. This seems like a slippery slope to full-on censorship. It makes me wary to think of how this could extend to conservative arguments about censoring 2SLGBTQIA+ educational material.
In Indiana, a similar bill is being passed through the Senate, to the dismay of many civil liberty unions. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Indiana published a statement on February 22, 2024, expressing their concerns. As ACLU notes, “Without proper protections, bad actors — hackers or disgruntled employees — could use someone’s personal data for exploitation.” ACLU is also concerned that the determination of what is considered sexually explicit material could restrict valuable 2SLGBTQIA+ resources or sex education content from minors.
Historically, when censorship laws are passed, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities feel the impact. ACLU notes there has already been a “systematic effort to censor access to LGBTQ+ literature in Indiana’s schools” because the legal phrase, “material harmful to minors,” has been used to target the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Here in BC, Little Sister’s Book & Art Emporium, a 2SLBGTQIA+ bookstore on Davie Street, found its shipments attacked based on a vague law where published materials were deemed “obscene” if they featured “the undue exploitation of sex.” Customs wouldn’t allow the materials to enter Canada based on this law, however, the judge found customs “had systematically targeted the store’s shipments, and wrongly prohibited their entry into Canada.” It took four years for the case to be heard — with the battle starting in 1987 and continuing in the early 2000s. This is how vague laws harm queer people and weaponize attempts at equity for further marginalization. Think about the length of time it would take to prove that educational material provides valuable resources for queer folks. Can you imagine if the safeguard for destroying their private information failed, and their information was outed as a result?
As a teenager, I found queer resources and peers on social media websites that happen to share space with people who upload explicit material, or advertise on it. While it’s good to protect minors, there are much better ways to do it. Parents should already have the responsibility to monitor and protect their children online. The government can instead provide parents with software to better safeguard their children, rather than creating an extensive bill with vague parameters. This Bill absolutely cannot go any further. It’s shocking that it has gone through so many readings when there are so many glaring flaws in it. We must push our MPs to vote “nay” against this Bill when it goes through its third reading in the House of Commons.
