CanadaBill S-209, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act
Bill S-209 An Act to restrict young persons' online access to pornographic material, 45th Parliament, 1st Session (successor to Bill S-210, An Act to restrict young persons' online access to sexually explicit material, 44th Parliament, which died on prorogation )
An adult content age verification (AV) rule binding private bodies.
- Age threshold
- 18
- Covered services
- Commercial internet services that make sexually explicit material available to the public
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Applies to organizations that make sexually explicit material available on the internet for commercial purposes.
- Do not make sexually explicit material available to young persons (under 18) on the internet for commercial purposes.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
If you get it wrong
Private right of actionNo
Penalties
Fines up to 250,000 Canadian dollars for a first offence and up to 500,000 Canadian dollars for subsequent offences, plus court-ordered website blocking for noncompliance
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Enforcement authority to be designated by the Governor in Council (department officials have suggested the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, not yet formalized in the bill text)
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does a platform that hosts user-uploaded material fall within section 6, under which an organization that "incidentally provides a service" used to search for, transmit, download, store or access content does not make pornographic material available for commercial purposes?
- Which age-verification or age-estimation methods will the Governor in Council prescribe under paragraph 12(1)(b), and what makes a method "highly effective" under paragraph 12(2)(a), given that section 7(1) removes the belief-in-age defence unless the organization implemented a "prescribed age-verification or age-estimation method"?
- In what circumstances is pornographic material "made available free of charge" not to be regarded as made available for "commercial purposes" under paragraph 12(1)(a)?
- Which agency, division or branch of the Government of Canada will the Governor in Council designate as the "enforcement authority" under section 8?
- What counts as a "legitimate purpose related to science, medicine, education or the arts" under subsection 7(2) for an organization that makes pornographic material available for commercial purposes?
What it makes you log
Log retention
- As of
- Basis
- Purpose bound
- Prohibits retaining
- Personal information collected for age-verification or age-estimation, which a prescribed method must destroy once the verification or estimation is completed
Logging duty
Section 5 makes the commercial availability of pornographic material to a young person an offence, and s. 7(1) removes the belief-in-age defence unless a prescribed age-verification or age-estimation method was implemented; the bill names no log or record the organization must keep. Section 12(2) sets conditions on a prescribed method, including destruction of the personal information once the check is done.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Would make it an offence for an organization to make sexually explicit material available to young persons on the internet for commercial purposes, and would let a designated enforcement authority apply to the Federal Court to order internet service providers to block a noncompliant website. Sponsored by Senator Julie Miville-Dechene, the bill passed the Senate on .
The House of Commons agreed to second reading and referral to committee on , and the bill is now at consideration in committee.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app publishes adult content.
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Page updated .