CanadaBill C-34, Safe Social Media Act
Bill C-34 An Act to enact the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, 45th Parliament, 1st Session
A social media and minors rule binding private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- on_request
- Who audits it
- Regulator
What it requires
- The Digital Safety Act would cover social media services and public chatbots and other online services designated under it, and would establish the Digital Safety Commission of Canada.
- If the Governor in Council specifies your regulated social media service by regulation, implement age-verification or age-estimation measures that prevent a person under 16 from having an account with it, unless the Digital Safety Commission of Canada exempts you on application after finding adequate safeguards for the protection of children.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Digital Safety Commission of Canada (to be established by the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act)
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Which regulated social media services will the Governor in Council specify under section 27(5) of the Digital Safety Act, given that section 27(4) applies the minimum age obligation "only in respect of regulated social media services" so specified?
- What number of users makes a social media service a "regulated social media service" under section 6(1), when the "significant number of users" is left to regulations under section 6(2)?
- What must a measure show to be "effective" under section 27(2)(a), the condition on which the Commission decides whether age-verification or age-estimation measures are "adequate"?
- When does a measure "unreasonably or disproportionately limit" expression by users, so that section 27(3) relieves the operator of the duty to implement it?
- What are "adequate safeguards" for the protection of children that qualify an operator for an exemption under section 29(1), when the criteria are left to regulations under section 29(2) and to guidelines under section 30?
What it reaches
Age threshold
16
Covered services
Social media services and public chatbots and other online services designated under the Digital Safety Act
How the hook was established
express
What makes it apply
User location
What it makes you log
Who may demand the log
Regulator
Log retention
The period for the section 25 compliance records is left to regulations.
- As of
- Basis
- Purpose bound
- Prohibits retaining
- Personal information collected for age-verification or age-estimation, which the measures must destroy once the verification or estimation is completed and must not use for any other purpose
Logging duty
Section 25 requires an operator to keep every record, including information and data, needed to show it complies with its duties under the Act, which includes the age-verification or age-estimation duty in s. 27. The section names no record of an age check; its contents and duration are left to regulations. Section 27(2)(c) separately requires the measures to destroy the personal information collected for age assurance once the check is complete.
- Kind
- Explicit
- As of
- Provision
- Digital Safety Act s. 25, as enacted by clause 2 of Bill C-34
- Trigger
- age_assurance
What this law does
Would enact the Digital Safety Act and establish the Digital Safety Commission of Canada. It would also require the operator of each regulated social media service specified in regulations made by the Governor in Council to implement adequate age-verification or age-estimation measures designed to prevent a person under 16 from having an account with the service.
The Digital Safety Commission of Canada could exempt an operator on application, subject to conditions, where the operator provides adequate safeguards for the protection of children. The earlier Bill C-63 of the 44th Parliament had also proposed a Digital Safety Commission of Canada. That bill did not pass before the 44th Parliament's session ended in January 2025.
Introduced by the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture on , the bill is at second reading in the House of Commons.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform.
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