Evidence of meeting #108 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was privacy.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
That's excellent.
Would the Privacy Act still apply? Does this bill amend or weaken in any way the protections associated with the Privacy Act?
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you.
Would this bill apply to educational materials, artwork involving nudity or other depictions of the human body that are not pornographic in nature?
5:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
No. As I said earlier, in clause 6 there's an exception for educational, scientific and artistic material. All three are excluded from any age verification.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you.
In the absence of meaningful age verification, what is the average age today at which children in Canada are accessing pornography?
5:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
This is one of the worrisome figures. The average age varies between, according to the studies, 11 and 13 years old, but you should know that in terms of the first encounter with porn, 50% of 13-year-olds, 27% of 11-year-olds and 10% of nine-year-olds have already watched or been in contact with porn. We're talking here about huge figures.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Senator, that is horrifying to me. Those are absolutely horrifying numbers.
Do you believe showing children sexually explicit pictures or videos is a form of child abuse?
5:10 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
I do, and because the Canadian Centre for Child Protection has an extremely good reputation in Canada, I will quote some of what they've said about the fact that all children have access to porn without any kind of research on their age.
The centre says the harms to children exposed to sexually explicit material include “difficulty forming healthy relationships”, “harmful sexual beliefs and behaviours” and “a normalization of sexual harm.” Because porn is there, it's normalized; the porn they see, which can contain violence and degrading acts, is normal for them, so obviously they're more susceptible to being harmed by a pornographer.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Genuis.
We will go now to Mr. Noormohamed for six minutes, please.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Thank you so much.
It's nice to finally get to a place where we can have a good conversation about this bill.
Senator, I think we all agree that what you are trying to accomplish is very important, and I think there are many means by which to do that. I would submit that Bill C-63 takes into consideration many of the issues you seek to resolve.
One of the concerns I did want to hear from you on is the whole issue of online privacy. Could you briefly explain what impact this bill might have on online privacy for Canadians? Would there be any concerns with respect to the privacy of online users?
5:15 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
I have to say, first of all, that Bill C-63 doesn't talk about age verification. There's nothing in this bill about age verification—the words are not even used—and there's very little on pornography. Bill C-63 talks about the very vague concept of “age appropriate design”. It says there should be age-appropriate design; I'm sorry, but age-appropriate design is not age verification. It could be at some point if a committee so decides, but it's not in the bill. That's the first thing I wanted to say.
Regarding privacy, we have laws in Canada. Why would—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
If I could, though, one of the concerns about this is the whole issue of personal information. Is that right?
5:15 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
Yes. I'm going to answer that now.
First of all, on this question, obviously we have privacy laws in Canada. Why would those privacy laws suddenly not apply to any company doing third party verification? That's nonsense.
I will quote some people who have more expertise on that than I do. The Age Verification Providers Association says, “Privacy-preserving age verification technology is already used at scale; it is highly effective and our members have already completed over a billion age checks.” The AVPA also says that, “Age verification can be designed to completely protect the identity of the users”.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
On that basis, who would design the technology you're proposing? What technology are you proposing would be used? Would it be private sector or government technology?
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Let me finish the question.
What you're saying is the private sector would have access to individual Canadians' data. Is that what you are suggesting?
5:15 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
No, I'm suggesting that all of those questions will be resolved in the regulations. What I'm saying to you is that we have, in clause 11 of the bill, five principles that will ensure privacy will be respected. I will read you the main one about the age-verification method that will be chosen. It says it “maintains user privacy and protects user personal information”.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
On this point, though, one of the concerns people have raised is that subclause 11(2) permits the use of what some would argue are inherently unsafe age-verification methods by Internet services, whether those are the uploading of data or scanning of social media activity.
How do we assure Canadians they would not have to turn all this information over in order for this age verification to take place?
One of the things I'm trying to make sure of is that we achieve the goal.
5:20 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
I'm not following you on subclause 11(2). What are you saying here?
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Under subclause 11(2), as I read it—and it could be my read of it—it would permit the use of any number of options in terms of age verification.
5:20 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
The options would have to follow those rules because they're in the bill. No method that doesn't respect privacy could be chosen in regulation because regulation, as you know, has to follow the principles that are in the bill.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Taleeb Noormohamed Liberal Vancouver Granville, BC
Let me try to simplify this.
In order for someone's age to be verified, who would control, hold, protect and safeguard the data that is shared?
5:20 p.m.
Senator, Quebec, ISG
The way it is done in other countries...for example, Germany has a system of accreditation. Some companies that are specialists in age verification can apply. For them to be accredited to do age verification on Canadians, they would need an accreditation.