Bill 137, Keeping Our Kids Safe Online Act, 2026
Introduced in the first chamber, dated , as of .
An age-appropriate design code rule binding government bodies.
- Criminal exposure
- No
- Private right of action
- No
- Audit expectation
- none
As of .
Where it has got to
The text described here is Bill 137, Original (print as introduced). That print is b137_e, published .
Locally, this stage is First Reading, Ordered for Second Reading.
The stage above is recorded at www.ola.org.
Introduced as a private member's bill. The bill's status page lists First Reading on , with the bill ordered for Second Reading, and no later stage.
What it requires
- This bill has not been enacted and is at first reading in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario; what follows is what it would require if passed in this form. It would bind the Minister of Education, or the member of the Executive Council to whom the Act is assigned, and an advisory committee that the Minister establishes, and not an online service.
- The Minister must establish an Online Safety Advisory Committee no more than 60 days after the section comes into force, with members the Minister appoints, and must ensure that the Committee includes members from each of these groups: parents, youths, education workers, school board members and social media experts.
- The Committee must explore approaches to online safety in other jurisdictions and assess how effective they have been, and develop a plan to ban social media and artificial intelligence chatbots in schools, including the steps school boards should take to implement the ban and any exceptions for accessibility or educational needs.
- The Committee must develop a curriculum for kindergarten to grade 12 respecting digital citizenship and online safety, and another respecting artificial intelligence literacy that requires instruction on misinformation and disinformation from artificial intelligence, the harmful impacts of artificial intelligence on mental health and democracy, and the environmental harms of artificial intelligence.
- The Committee must develop recommendations on measures to prevent harm to children and youth from social media and artificial intelligence and measures to hold technology and social media companies accountable for those harms, including harms related to online gambling, pornography consumption, human trafficking and luring, the mental health impacts of social media and artificial intelligence, and misinformation and disinformation, and recommendations to ensure that mental health organizations for children receive sufficient funding and training to ensure there is community capacity to address technology-related addiction and its impacts.
- The Committee must report its recommendations to the Minister on or before the day that is six months after the day it is established. The Minister must inform the Legislative Assembly of the actions taken to implement the recommendations, and any relevant next steps, on or before the day that is six months after that report, and must publish an annual report on a Government of Ontario website describing the progress made in implementing the recommendations and the outcomes of the implementation.
- The Minister must incorporate the most recent versions of the Committee's curriculum on digital citizenship and online safety and its curriculum on artificial intelligence literacy when developing the curriculum guidelines referred to in paragraph 3 of subsection (1) of section 8 of the Education Act.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
None. The bill creates no regulator or enforcement power; the Minister of Education, or the member of the Executive Council to whom the Act is assigned, would establish the Committee, report to the Legislative Assembly and publish an annual progress report.
What it reaches
Covered services
None directly: the Minister of Education and an advisory committee carry the duties. The Committee's work would concern social media, artificial intelligence chatbots in schools, and the accountability of technology and social media companies for harms to children and youth.
What this law does
This bill is an education and advisory measure that places no duty on an online service. The Minister of Education would have to establish an Online Safety Advisory Committee within 60 days after the Act comes into force. The Committee would have to develop a plan to ban social media and artificial intelligence chatbots in schools, including the steps school boards should take to implement the ban and any exceptions for accessibility or educational needs.
The Committee would also have to develop recommendations on measures to prevent harm to children and youth from social media and artificial intelligence and measures to hold technology and social media companies accountable for those harms. The Committee would also have to develop a kindergarten to grade 12 curriculum on digital citizenship and online safety and another on artificial intelligence literacy.
Section 8 of the Education Act would be amended to require the Minister to incorporate the most recent versions of those two curricula when developing curriculum guidelines.