Evidence of meeting #125 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was deepfakes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Ms. Moreau or Ms. Rourke, the biggest entertainer in the world, of course, is Taylor Swift. She got deepfaked twice this year. One was sexually explicit, and the other was the debacle that happened at the Grammys, where it wasn't her voice. It wasn't her.
How do you address this? There's no bigger entertainer in the world than Taylor Swift, yet this blew over with little or no news from it, actually. It died fairly quickly.
Go ahead, Ms. Rourke.
BCL/JD, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
I think the deepfakes of Taylor Swift are what prompted a lot of these conversations in recent months. I think it has actually brought this conversation more into the light.
I would also add, though, that Taylor Swift has many more resources than the average individual to combat this and to respond to issues, but it does show the difficulty of banning the technology and preventing its reusage and the reharming of future individuals.
Liberal
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Thank you so much to the witnesses for being here.
I'm going to split my time with my colleague, Ms. Lattanzio.
One of the things that we have sought to do in addressing some of the concerns related to online harms, and in particular some of the issues that have been raised during the course of the study, are making sure that our legislation, Bill C-63, the online harms bill, takes on some of these challenges head-on and works.... As we have said, we are willing to work with all parties to ensure that it's the best possible bill out there.
I don't know if you had a chance to follow the deliberations of our meeting on Tuesday, but our colleague, Mrs. Thomas, raised what I would argue is a very important concern in a number of her questions. It would appear, at least from my read of it, that she was advocating—I don't want to put words in her mouth, but this is the way that I understood what she was suggesting—that we take a risk-based approach in the legislating of regulations around social media platforms. Our belief is that this is exactly what Bill C-63 proposes to do.
Do you agree, first of all, with Bill C-63 and what we're trying to do, and that the right approach to legislating regulations around social media platforms is really to take a risk-based approach, as suggested by Mrs. Thomas and others?
I would refer that question to you, Professor.
Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, As an Individual
Thank you very much.
I want to be blunt. I don't have a horse in this race. I want to also say, in my attempt to make my words brief, I was also a member of the advisory panel. I also want to say that we didn't agree about everything. We were very congenial and, I think, very thankful for everyone's contributions, but we had mixed views on things.
I guess I do lean towards that idea of risk management. I guess where I would also like to put a little bit of faith in is that I'm more optimistic about that because, in this idea of concepts and wondering whether.... I think we've heard the term “teeth” being used. What's handy about not having specifics is that those concepts can be what they need to be at the time that some topic is brought up.
There's another idea in law that happens sometimes when things are too specific and we don't have a “moving forward” approach that might allow some moments where we try to improve things. There's a concept called “freezing rights”. Perhaps the most notable place we might have thought of that has been in the interpretation of fiduciary obligations, mainly to indigenous peoples.
What ends up happening is that case law has to come back to the courtroom to then redefine something, and then that case is compared to previous cases that have a very specific definition. Then the legislation has to come back. It has to be redefined. If there are regulations, then the regulations have to be evaluated, so you end up coming to the place we are here, and that's what I'm very afraid of happening.
The way I see it, law is a work-in-progress. There's a very cliché, if not cachet idea that law is like a living tree. That idea is to have faith in people like you to evaluate things and, when it's important to contribute to the regulations, we can dive deeper to decrease potential risks we suddenly see. What actually can be very intimidating to other parties is that there isn't a specific, so they might be very nervous that what is potentially going to be done by them just might qualify even if it's not mentioned. Therefore, I'm very supportive of it.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Thank you.
With the minute that I have left, I'm going to give it to my colleague, Ms. Lattanzio.
Liberal
Patricia Lattanzio Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Thank you, Professor Daum Shanks.
In your presentation, you mentioned making the two observations. You just discussed the first one. I'm going to go with the responsibility.
How is Bill C-63 addressing the notion of responsibility?
Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, As an Individual
I'm going to tweak again. I see it as “responsibly” as compared to “responsibility”, because in law and legislation there can be that word as well. I see it as a way to prevent some problems that especially come up in civil actions. I see it as a very comparative idea to, for example, duty of care in negligence. I also see it as very similar to something that used to be called “nervous shock” but is now the idea of “mental distress”.
What I really like about it is that—and perhaps this is already connected to what I said before—it is going to help speed up some really important evaluations that I think could get really slowed down by thinking of things, for example, in a civil way.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much. We've gone well over time here.
I'm going to go now to Mr. Martin Champoux for two and a half minutes, please.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Professor Shanks, I'm sorry, but I don't have much time. I'll try to keep my questions fairly brief.
You were part of the expert advisory group on online safety. The group was appointed by the government to advise the government.
Did the members of the group use foreign legislation as a basis for making recommendations to the government?
Is there anything being done elsewhere in the world from which we can draw inspiration to combat this content online?
Associate Professor, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, As an Individual
We very regularly were able to talk about the United Kingdom, the EU and Australia. I was not at all a person who could contribute in those specific moments, but I would say, particularly with the U.K., I found myself thinking that how we were being influenced by what we could have done was based on, perhaps, the imperfections, if not shifts of things, that we could learn from what was happening in the United Kingdom.
Sometimes the benefit of being a little bit slower—or, unfortunately, a lot slower—is that you can notice what's going on somewhere else, and you can do or not do what they've done or not done. What has also been handy, especially about those comparisons, is learning about stages that are very similar to what we've done here and thinking of that idea of input and how things could change over time with people learning more terms, like deepfake. How do you increase the knowledge of that?
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Ms. Moreau, do you believe that until a very large majority of civilized nations around the world, including the ones we're talking about today, have come together to legislate on this, we will always be exposed to the dissemination of this type of content?
BCL/JD, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
Yes, I do.
In addition, it's not that everyone needs legislation to counter this problem, but rather that the places where these companies are based need legislation to stop this.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you, Ms. Moreau.
Madam Chair, I will answer that in a few seconds.
As I understand it, a simple amendment—
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
You're absolutely right, Madam Chair. However, given the time we have to allow for interpretation, we sometimes have a bit of leeway in terms of speaking time.
I'll just conclude by saying that, generally speaking, from what I'm hearing from the witnesses, if we were to add to the Criminal Code the definition of deepfake in relation to images, I think it would be an important step forward in this legislation. I just wanted to add that comment in closing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Martin.
Ms. Ashton is next for two and a half minutes.
Please go ahead, Niki.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB
Thank you.
My questions are for Ms. Moreau and Ms. Rourke.
We know that digital platforms are not being held accountable for the harmful and illegal content they are hosting, and we in the NDP have been repeatedly calling for accountability. In your writing, which you referred to today, you've highlighted how somebody like Taylor Swift had a fan base that forced Twitter to eventually take down deepfakes of her, but we know that regular women simply don't have that option.
In your view, would something like a digital safety commissioner who could force the removal of these types of images be helpful?
BCL/JD, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
I think the role of a public regulatory body is necessary. To leave it up to individuals to police their own content or to constantly be on the search for, or vigilant about, their own likeness being used on the web is an unrealistic expectation. For individuals to have to maintain their own protection in that way, I think it underestimates the level of accessibility and widespread use of the technology and how difficult this is.
I know it's also happened to voice actors for video games. They have had their likeness used and manipulated. For people with these fan bases, like you said, if they're not Taylor Swift.... Individuals with a smaller following can be recognized, and it's difficult for them to locate all of the content and constantly notify different hosting platforms to have it removed.
I don't think this idea of self-policing is a practical solution.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB
This came up on Tuesday as well. We know the devastating impact that all of this, particularly the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, has on mental health, including long-lasting impacts. One of the witnesses on Tuesday, Ms. Lalonde, talked about how frontline groups specializing in helping people cope with the fallout of these situations don't have the support they need.
Do you agree with this statement? Do you think the federal government should be funding mental health supports with a particular focus on working with victims and survivors in this area?
BCL/JD, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
I'm not looking to be extremely prescriptive, but I think that, yes, 100%, it would be beneficial for the victims to have that support, wherever it comes from. I think the House of Commons has the leadership to do something around that—coordinating, funding or finding ways to make it more accessible to the public.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much, Ms. Ashton.
I'll now go to Mr. Gourde for the Conservatives for five minutes.
Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Gourde, Mr. Gourde is up now for five minutes.
Thank you.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses who are with us today.
My question is for two of the representatives of the Faculty of Law at McGill University, Ms. Moreau and Ms. Rourke.
Earlier, you talked about awareness and prevention. It might be important to undertake that process.
Should awareness be raised in schools, or should the problem be publicized more broadly, on television or on social networks, for example, since people are always on those networks?
However, we would have to put that material in place.
Would that be an option?
BCL/JD, Faculty of Law, McGill University, As an Individual
That would certainly be an option.
In fact, I believe that all the options you've given are good.
Schools have a role to play, since it's the physical location where there's a lot of social interaction. They know the students and the youth who socialize.
In my opinion, platforms also have a role to play in educating the people who use them to distribute or even create material. I think a lot of platforms allow for the creation of material, such as the Deep Nude app, and things like that. The platforms say that you have to make sure you get the consent of the people concerned when you are creating all this content. However, they know very well that no one is doing it.
I think people need to know what's going on. Users need more protection from these platforms, particularly if they're creating content for the public and they want to try to make money from it.