Why the Government’s Plan for a Social Media Ban in Bill C-34 Is Unconstitutional - Michael Geist
www.michaelgeist.ca
he debate over the government's proposed social media ban for under 16s has raised several difficult questions, including doubts about whether it will work, which services it will cover, and what risks to privacy mandating age verification could create. But beyond the operational questions is a more fundamental one: is the ban constitutional? Bill C-34 contains some signals that the government knows there are serious constitutional vulnerabilities, given the obvious implications for freedom of expression that come from blocking an entire cohort of Canadians from accessing information and expressing themselves on social media. The bill contains several provisions that are seemingly designed to act as safeguards that could be used to argue that the ban is proportionate. These include guidance on age verification technologies to address privacy concerns, promises that the verification obligation does not require measures that "unreasonably or disproportionately" limit expression, a requirement that the new Digital Safety Commission consider freedom of expression, equality, and privacy when it establishes regulations and guidelines, and the ability for services to seek a ban exemption if they can demonstrate adequate safeguards for children. Even with these measures, the ban might still be found to be unconstitutional. But if you think they provide a plausible argument that the ban can be justified (as Emily Laidlaw argues here), the problem is that none will be operational when the ban takes effect. In other words, there is a major disconnect between the law the government says it is establishing and the one it plans to implement. If the safeguards are not implemented and millions of Canadians are required to verify their age to express themselves on social media, I believe the ban is likely to face an immediate court challenge and that a court will rule it violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
    21·
    12 days ago

    Another internet law for people’s “protection” that just happens to be implemented in the most surveillance-friendly way. There are ways to prove age that don’t let anyone know your identity, but governments never choose them. Combine this with Bill C-22 and its a huge assault on internet privacy for Canadians.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      3·
      11 days ago

      Right? Like many years ago, maybe we didnt have effective technology to do it in a privacy focused way, but we do now. Any decision not to use these ways is a blatant power grab and intentional invasion of privacy.

  • bitwise@lemmy.ca
    13·
    12 days ago

    This is, of course, their insane attempt to regulate access to information that will ultimately be the stepping stone they use to justify banning VPNs, computers without government controls, and so on.

  • Sunshine@piefed.caOPEnglish
    11·
    12 days ago

    The imbalance becomes even more pronounced when weighing the law’s benefits against its harms. The harms are certain, immediate, and irreversible, as the verification infrastructure exposes millions of identity documents to providers largely beyond the reach of Canadian privacy law, a risk demonstrated by the Discord breach that leaked roughly 70,000 government-issued IDs last fall. Privacy alone may not decide the case, but the verification mandate is not only a privacy cost. A law that conditions access to social media for online expression by requiring proof of identity limits expression itself for Canadians of all ages. The benefits, by contrast, are speculative at best, given mounting data from Australia that suggests a ban is ineffective.