Abstain
An Act to provide for the regulation of the online use of deepfakes and for related transparency measures
The bill creates a legal framework to regulate the online use and spread of AI-generated deepfake images, audio, and video to protect individuals from significant psychological, reputational, and economic harm. It requires online platforms and undertakings to build processes to detect deepfakes, clearly label them, and remove those that may cause significant harm as soon as feasible. Operators must keep records demonstrating compliance and face administrative monetary penalties for violations, with potential personal liability for directors and officers who participate in violations. Enforcement is administrative (not criminal), with regulations to define penalty ranges, defences, appeals, and compliance agreements.
Protecting people from fraud and identity theft can support trust in digital markets, but broad new platform obligations may increase costs and dampen growth in Canada’s digital sector; net prosperity impact is unclear.
The bill imposes new detection, labeling, removal, and record-keeping duties on virtually all platforms, backed by penalties and director/officer liability, increasing compliance burden and regulatory risk.
Open-ended standards like “reasonable steps” and “may cause significant harm” could force costly monitoring and over-removal, disadvantaging Canadian startups versus global incumbents with larger compliance teams.
The measure does not target export growth; any effects on digital content exports are indirect and uncertain.
Broad obligations and personal liability for officers may chill AI, media, and platform investment in Canada unless narrowed with clear defences, safe harbours, and size-based thresholds.
Using administrative monetary penalties can be more efficient than criminal enforcement, but the bill likely requires new oversight capacity and reporting burdens; net efficiency is uncertain.
No tax provisions are included.
The bill addresses online harms through targeted regulation rather than a broad economic growth strategy.
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