New Digital Safety Rules for Online Platforms
An Act to enact the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts
Summary
- Enacts the Digital Safety Act to regulate large social media, chatbot, and other highârisk online services, imposing duties to protect children (ageâappropriate design, porn ageâverification) and, for designated social platforms, to keep underâ16s from opening accounts.
- Requires platforms to mitigate usersâ exposure to harmful content, provide tools to block and flag content, label certain synthetic and botâamplified content, preserve some violent/extremist content for one year, and make childâsexualâabuse material and nonâconsensual intimate content inaccessible within 24 hours.
- Mandates detailed, public Digital Safety Plans with metrics and inventories, enables accredited researchers to seek ordered access to specified platform data, and excludes private messaging and basic Internet connectivity; no proactive content scanning is required except possible CSAM uploadâblocking by regulation.
- Creates the Digital Safety Commission to administer and enforce the regime, issue guidelines/codes, inspect, hold hearings, and order compliance; includes consultations with the Privacy Commissioner and RCMP, and allows costârecovery charges on regulated services.
- Establishes strong penalties (AMPs up to the greater of $10M or 3% of global revenue; offences up to the greater of $20M or 5% of global revenue) and periodic ministerial reviews, including a review of the underâ16 rule.
Builder Assessment
The bill materially improves online safety for children and the public, but it constructs a far-reaching regulatory regime with heavy compliance costs, expansive discretion, and high penalties that will weigh on Canadaâs digital competitiveness. On balance, the economic and innovation downsides outweigh the indirect trust benefits for the digital economy.
- Retain the child-safety objectives but shift to risk-based, outcomes-focused co-regulation with recognized standards and independent certification safe harbours instead of prescriptive mandates.
- Carve out SMEs and early-stage startups with de minimis thresholds (Canadian active users/revenue), phased timelines, and simplified reporting to avoid stifling new entrants.
- Mandate privacy-preserving age checks: prohibit ID/biometric retention, require third-party zero-knowledge verification, and independent privacy/security audits.
- Tighten and clarify definitions of "harmful" and "synthetic" content; focus binding duties on clearly illegal content, with due-process safeguards to reduce over-removal risk.
- Minimize overlap with CRTC and the Privacy Commissioner via a oneâstop shop MOU, cap costârecovery charges, and add sunset/periodic burden reviews tied to measurable harm reduction outcomes.
- Align with EU DSA/UK OSB where possible to streamline cross-border compliance for exporters and reduce duplicative obligations.
Question Period Cards
What is the projected annual cost of the Digital Safety Commission, how much of that will be shifted to Canadian users and startups through cost-recovery fees, and where is the Regulatory Impact Analysis quantifying the compliance burden?
Will the minister commit to privacy-preserving age verificationâexplicitly banning storage of IDs or biometrics and requiring independent, audited zero-knowledge methodsâbefore any regulation forces firms to build intrusive systems?
Given 24-hour takedown obligations and broad definitions around harmful and synthetic content, what concrete safeguards will prevent over-removal and protect lawful expression, including small-business safe harbours and a clear, risk-based, outcomes-focused code of practice?
Principles Analysis
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Canada should aim to be the world's most prosperous country.
Creates a broad, prescriptive compliance regime and a new regulator that raises operating costs and legal risk for digital firms, dampening growth more than it directly advances prosperity.
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Promote economic freedom, ambition, and breaking from bureaucratic inertia (reduce red tape).
Imposes extensive obligations (ageâgating, design mandates, rapid takedowns, reporting, audits, inspections) and empowers a new commission with orders and large fines, expanding red tape.
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Drive national productivity and global competitiveness, including removing interprovincial trade barriers and improving labour mobility (one country, one market).
Compliance overhead and liability risk, especially for AI chatbots and social products, may slow product cycles and discourage scaling from Canada relative to jurisdictions with clearer, lighter frameworks.
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Grow exports of Canadian products and resources, and move up the value chain by processing resources domestically rather than exporting them raw.
Adds countryâspecific requirements (e.g., ageâverification/estimation, dataâaccess orders, plan formats) that increase the cost of offering Canadianâbuilt platforms and AI services abroad, reducing export competitiveness.
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Encourage investment, innovation, and resource development.
Openâended duties on "harmful" and "synthetic" content, strict timelines, and high penalties create regulatory uncertainty that can chill venture investment and experimentation in AI and social technologies.
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Deliver better public services at lower cost (government efficiency).
Establishes a new commission with overlapping touchpoints (CRTC, OPC, RCMP) and costârecovery fees on firms; efficiency gains are unclear and administrative complexity is high.
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Reform taxes to incentivize work, risk-taking, and innovation.
Does not address taxation.
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Focus on large-scale prosperity, not incrementalism.
Primarily a safety and contentâgovernance bill; it neither targets broad-based economic expansion nor a clear prosperity agenda.
Did we get the builder vote wrong?
Email [email protected]
PartyMinister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages
StatusAt second reading in the House of Commons
Last updatedN/A
TopicsTechnology and Innovation, Social Issues, Criminal Justice
Parliament45