Canada makes another move towards age verification for porn sites

A bill that would require Canadians to verify their age online before accessing pornography has advanced another step on its journey through the country’s House of Commons on Wednesday.

The S-210 Bill, also known as the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, passed the Senate in the spring. The law mandates adult websites to verify users’ ages but does not specify how.

Options could include a digital ID system or facial scans coupled with age estimation technology. In September, the Digital Governance Standards Institute (DGSI) of Canada proposed defining minimum standards for age verification methods using biometrics.

The DGSI also argued that Bill S-210 does not keep children safe from other forms of adult content, including gambling, violence, guns, and hate speech, and that age verification technologies should have broader application.

A similar argument was also made by 133 Liberal Members of the Parliament (MP) who voted against the bill on Wednesday. Other parties agreed to send it to a committee for further study, Canadian Press reports.

“The biggest issue we need to look at is why the bill is fairly narrow in its application with respect to harms to children,” Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux said on Monday.

The Liberal Party has been preparing its own bill to fight online dangers to children. Other government bodies have expressed similar complaints: The Canadian Heritage minister’s office said on Thursday that the bill is “fundamentally flawed.”

“Experts have loudly pointed to the serious issues in this proposal around issues of privacy, security, and technology,” the office says.

According to the S-210 bill, adult websites that don’t verify ages would face fines of up to CA$250,000 (US$186,900) on their first offense.

Companies such as Pornhub have been fighting the legislation, claiming that any regulations that require sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information put user safety at risk. The company is advocating for an approach that would verify a user’s age through a device, according to the report.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  Canada  |  children  |  face biometrics  |  legislation  |  selfie biometrics