A private members’ bill seeking to prevent minors from accessing online pornography has been stalled in Parliament as the federal government continues to oppose the legislation.
Liberal-appointed Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, the author of the Bill S-210, claimed that Canada is lagging behind other countries on this issue, saying she is confused as to the reason for Liberals’ stance on the matter.
“The Liberal government’s opposition to Bill S-210 is puzzling, considering the bill is supported by all other parties in the House,” she said on Thursday. “It also contradicts earlier signals from the government. Most objections to S-210 are based on fear mongering and fallacies, and the issues of privacy and data security can be thoroughly addressed in regulations.”
“The Canadian government is going against the tide of countries and jurisdictions that are legislating to protect children from exposure to online pornography, including the European Union, the U.K., France, Germany, Spain,” Miville-Dechêne told the Canadian Press.
A total of 15 Liberal MPs broke ranks with the government and voted in favour of the bill alongside the Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois last month.
The bill, also known as the Protecting Young Persons From Exposure to Pornography Act, had been pushed towards its final stages in the Commons but the Liberals have withheld support.
According to the Heritage Minister’s office, the government plans to continue withholding support for the bill, citing privacy concerns.
Bill S-210 would require commercial websites that offer pornography to require users to verify that they are over the age of 18 years old to have access to the material.
The bill does now specify how this would be reliably accomplished however, leaving plans to make additional regulations in the future open to the government.
Critics of the bill warn that the age verification process could compromise user privacy, especially if it requires personal information, like photo identification.
The Trudeau government has hinted that such preventative regulations may be included in its forthcoming online safety bill, but no draft has yet been made public.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he plans to introduce measures to bar children from access to pornography, telling the El Pais newspaper that children are being negatively impacted by sexually explicit material online.
Officials in Germany said that they are preparing to call on their country’s internet providers to block Pornhub and similar websites operated by Aylo, a Canadian owned online pornography company due to its failure to comply with age verification laws there, according to the Globe and Mail.
Aylo has moved to challenge German regulators in court.
Bill S-210 has cleared the Senate and second reading in the House of Commons, it now will go to a Commons committee.
Liberal MP John McKay is among those who voted in favour of the bill, breaking ranks with their party, as well as NDP MP Lisa Marie Barron.
Ariane Joazard-Belizaire, a spokesperson for Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge, alleges that the bill creates privacy issues, but said that the government remains interested in enacting measures to protect children from harmful content online.
“What’s most important for us is protecting minors and the duty to protect children who are spending more and more time online,” she said in a statement. “We are listening to the experts and Bill S-210 is fundamentally flawed as drafted. We’ve looked to better and effective approaches. Our approach will be responsible and keep minors safer online, while protecting the privacy, security, and free expression of all Canadians.”
Executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection Lianna McDonald said it’s far too easy for children to access pornography online.
“In Canada, recent surveys show over 30% of kids aged 9 to 13 have encountered pornography online without seeking it,” wrote McDonald in an email.
“Given that online service providers have no requirements to gatekeep who accesses harmful or explicit content to Canadians, we are glad to see the Senate is drawing a line in the sand on upholding values aimed at keeping children safe online in the same way we do offline.”
Meanwhile, Aylo has said that the company does support the concept of an age verification process, however it argues that the process should take place on the device being used to access explicit materials, not on the websites themselves and that the government must ensure user privacy.
Aylo’s statement goes on to say that it believes users’ will just visit other websites that do not comply with any age verification process as a way to avoid giving out any personal information.
University of Ottawa’s Canada Research Chair in internet law Michael Geist called Bill S-210 a threat to privacy and freedom of expression and one that would mandate the blocking of websites.
Geist noted that age verification processes frequently involve facial scanning, or uploading government-issued identity documents to services which are based in foreign countries, not Canada.
“The bill as drafted is wildly overbroad, capturing general social media and search sites. Other jurisdictions have narrowed to sites where a ‘substantial portion’ of the content is sexually explicit,” said Geist.
