Bill S-210 has an arresting title compared to the majority of those passing through the various levels of government in order to become law: “Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act.”

“The title of the legislation sends a fairly powerful message. There is absolutely no doubt about that,” said Kevin Lamoureux, parliamentary secretary to the leader of the government, in the House of Commons during a reading of the bill.

Bill S-210 is a federal, private member’s bill. As of June 2024, the bill has passed second reading and is in the report stage. It is meant to protect children and teenagers from exposure to age-inappropriate content. On paper, that seems like a good idea that most people would support. Protecting children is important, and much of the discussion during the House of Commons readings focused mainly on that—not the issues with privacy the bill poses. The details surrounding how age verification would work are nebulous, and the ones that are known raise privacy concerns.

During the readings, Liberal and NDP members of parliament mentioned some of those concerns alongside the ones about children. Conservative and Bloc Québécois representatives mainly focused on controlling who is able to watch pornography.

“Canadians want their children to be protected, but they are also wary about invasions of their privacy. Canadians have very little trust in the ability of the web giants to manage their information and private data,” said Anju Dhillon, a Liberal MP who represents Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle, in November 2023 when the bill was being discussed in its second reading, a rare stage to reach for a private member’s bill. People are also fearful, she said, of deliberate violations of privacy and data security breaches.

The Privacy & Access Council of Canada has pointed out that the sweeping provisions in the bill could endanger all Canadians’ privacy, not just underaged people. Currently, age verification could entail forcing people to upload pictures of their faces and government-issued IDs to watch porn online. Some of that data could be stored long term, creating easily found trails online. The bill does not set out clear terms to prevent this from happening.

Age verification technology has been criticized as immature and not adequately developed at a technological level. A recent report from France’s National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties found that six of the leading age verification solutions did not respect users’ rights.

This is a particular stress on members of the 2SLBGTQIA+ community, who could face exposure and/or blackmail for their browsing history. Not everyone in the community is out, and the ability for others to access intimate data puts already marginalized people at further risk. For 2SLBGTQIA+ Canadians who live in rural areas, this can be especially scary as the online world is sometimes their only way to connect with queer culture.

There is not a lot of data specific to the porn-viewing habits of Canadian youth, with researchers denoting a need for more studies. A 2023 report from Common Sense Media found that around 73 percent of U.S. teens aged 13-17 had watched porn online. The same study found differences in the porn consumption of 2SLBGTQIA+ youth compared to their hetero peers—the former group was more likely to seek out porn intentionally, in an effort to explore and affirm their sexuality. Yet this bill and its sweeping provisions seems based on the idea that all youth engage in the same habits online (watching violent pornography where a woman is subjugated by a man; the concern being its influence) when that is simply not accurate.

Another critique of the bill has been that a VPN, which many youth know how to use, could be a way to get around age verification. The bill is meant to protect those under 18. They are arguably also the most internet and tech-savvy generation to exist and the bill is being created by people who have not grown up online in the same way, and may not be able to anticipate how young people will subvert provisions.

Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne is the chief architect and lead defender of the bill. A former Radio-Canada broadcaster who was appointed to the Senate in 2018, she was a guest on the “Law Bytes” podcast to debate it. In a January 2024 episode, she provided her rationale and defence against the criticism and concerns it has sparked. She explained to host Michael Geist that she has worked carefully on drafting the legislation and adding amendments for three years.

Miville-Dechêne responded to the issues Geist raised around privacy by saying that the bill had not specifically mandated exactly what age verification system would be used at this point, noting that technology evolves constantly. “No method is absolutely zero risk…we can erase the data. We can make sure that it is a mechanism that doesn’t go too far. But frankly, this is not in the bill. This is to be discussed afterwards. So how can you say the bill is dangerous?” Mivelle-Dechêne said.

“In some ways, it seems to me, that makes it even more dangerous,” Geist retorted.

A bill meant to protect vulnerable members of our society should not further marginalize others. If there are not sweeping reforms to this bill, particularly the technological aspects, it could easily become one of the biggest national threats to privacy in recent history.