Online Harms Act: Bill C63 – Conversation with Carol Todd

Bill C63 will give teachers and families a range of online safety conversation topics to talk about (such as exploitation, consent, screen time, cyberbullying, etc) with kids. These conversations about the digital world we work and play in are part of the Digital Literacy (DL) teachings that are essential in both homes and schools. Educators will need to find resourceful ways to teach DL to their students and be mindful of what to teach and how to teach it so that students will listen and learn attentively. So many students feel as if they already know how to be safe online when realistically, they often don’t. Being safe online also comes with active knowledge about personal safety and child abuse prevention tools.

If passed, this act would give increased tools for law enforcement to act on reported crimes that happen online. If there was a reported offence related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM), this bill would "Extend the period of preservation of data related to a child pornography offense to one year, as opposed to the current 21 days. To help facilitate investigations, extend the limitation period for the prosecution of an offense from 2 years to five years to ensure perpetrators can be brought to justice.", thus allowing law enforcement more time to follow through on a more complete investigation.

Currently, many countries are addressing these problems on various social media platforms and the emotional and physical harm they may cause to children.

Some of these harms may include:

• Mental Health Effects: Depression and Anxiety
• Negative Impact on Daily Life: Distraction and Sleep Disruption
• Quality of Information: Biased or Incorrect Information
• Social and Emotional Consequences: Cyberbullying and Social Isolation
• Behavioural Changes: Judgement of Others and Sensory Overload

The Online Harms Act (Bill C63) addresses seven focal points that would lead to the above impacts.

1. Content that sexually victimizes a child or re-victimizes a survivor
   2. Content that incites violent extremism or terrorism
   3. Content that incites violence
   4. Content that foments hatred
   5. Content used to bully a child
   6. Intimate content communicated without consent, and
   7. Content that induces a child to harm themselves.

The bill will hold online platforms accountable for the content they host. Bill C-63 will create stronger protections for kids online by requiring platforms to act responsibly in relation to a number of categories of harmful content, including content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor; content that induces a child to harm themselves and content used to bully a child. There is a specific duty within the act to protect children. Services would be required to implement design features, such as age-appropriate design features and to take the interests of children into account when designing products and features.

These requirements would be set out in regulations issued by the Digital Safety Commission and could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.

We believe the changes are realistic. Canada is not the first country to implement a regulatory framework to protect children from these types of online harms. Australia has already done so, and the UK has passed legislation as well. There is also legislation in the US Senate which proposes to increase the protections for kids online. For too long, we have tolerated a system where online platforms have offloaded their responsibilities onto parents, expecting them to protect their kids from harms that platforms create or amplify.

The legislation is focused on holding platforms more accountable for the content they host. Platforms will be subject to a specific statutory duty to protect children, in addition to the more general duty to act responsibly. Platforms will need to integrate age-appropriate design features for kids and must report on the measures they are taking to protect children.

The specific requirements for platforms will be set out in regulations issued by the Digital Safety Commission and could include things like defaults for parental controls, default settings related to warning labels for children, or safe search settings for a service’s internal search function. They could also include design features to limit children’s exposure to harmful content, including explicit adult content, cyberbullying content and content that incites self-harm.

Allowing the Digital Safety Commission to enact guidelines and regulations under this duty would allow the legislation to be adaptable and to grow over time as the landscape of harmful content affecting children changes.

While there isn’t a specific provision in the Criminal Code that addresses cyberbullying or bullying more generally, bullying captures a wide range of behaviours, most of which do not amount to criminal conduct, for example, name-calling, teasing, belittling and social exclusion. However, where bullying behaviour reaches the level of criminal conduct, the Criminal Code contains several provisions that can address this behaviour. Depending on the nature of the activity involved, several Criminal Code offences may apply to instances of bullying or cyberbullying, including:

• criminal harassment (section 264)
• uttering threats (section 264.1);
• intimidation (subsection 423(1)),
• mischief in relation to data (subsection 430(1.1));
• unauthorized use of computer (section 342.1);
• identity fraud (section 403);
• extortion (section 346);
• false messages, indecent or harassing telephone calls (section 372);
• counselling suicide (section 241);
• defamatory libel (sections 298-301);
• incitement of hatred (section 319); and,
• child pornography offences (section 163.1).

These offences all already exist in the Criminal Code. Behaviours related to bullying and cyberbullying that would fit under the criminal code can be reported to law enforcement.

There will be a requirement under the Act for platforms to remove intimate images shared without consent as well as content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor from their sites within 24 hours.

The legislation targets the larger platforms since this is where most people in Canada spend their time online. However, for smaller services that may pose a significant threat, the Governor in Council may make regulations that would include them under the framework.

In January 2024, British Columbia enacted legislation of the Intimate Images Protection Act (IIPA) which addresses the sharing and distribution of intimate images without consent.