Canada’s Sweeping New Digital Safety Regime Raises the Bar for Social Media Platforms and AI Chatbots

11 Jun Canada’s Sweeping New Digital Safety Regime Raises the Bar for Social Media Platforms and AI Chatbots

Harris + co.

The federal government has introduced Bill C-34, a landmark proposal that would create Canada’s first comprehensive digital safety framework. For social media platforms, conversational AI providers, advertising agencies, and global brands operating in Canada, the Bill signals a significant shift in regulatory expectations.

Key components include a wide range of obligations applicable to social media platforms, AI chatbots and similar online services, and a new regulator with broad supervisory and enforcement powers.

A New Regulatory Architecture:

If passed in its current form, these sweeping new requirements will apply to the following systems if they exceed a (soon to be prescribed) user count::

• Social media platforms enabling users to access and share content

• Online AI chatbot systems offering adaptive, human like conversation, and

• Other interactive online services accessible in Canada, excluding sale and search services

The Bill introduces four main statutory duties for operators:

• Core Duty to Protect Children under 18: This duty requires implementation of child protection design features, age gating for pornographic content, and measures to reduce exposure to harmful content (bullying, self harm, hate, extremism, non consensual intimate content), and could require regulated social media platforms to implement adequate age-verification or age-estimation measures for users under 16.

• Duty to Act Responsibly:  Social platforms must mitigate harmful content, provide user control tools, label synthetic content, and preserve certain content for investigations. Chatbot operators must mitigate harmful outputs, implement crisis intervention safeguards, and offer user flagging tools.

• Duty to Be Transparent: Disclosure of Digital Safety Plans, compliance records, and other information sharing with the Commission, with some information potentially published to the public.

• Duty to Make Certain Content Inaccessible: Social media operators must remove child sexual exploitation material and non-consensual intimate content, with users able to escalate complaints.

Enforcement with Significant Consequences

The new Digital Safety Commission of Canada will have extensive powers, including public complaint adjudication, hearings, compliance orders, data access rights, and public reporting. It will also have statutory authority to issue guidelines, codes of conduct and similar documents, including guidance on when regulated services should communicate with law enforcement.

Non-compliant operators could face penalties up to the greater of $20 million CAD or 5% of gross global revenue, and individuals up to the greater of $5 million or 1.5% of personal gross global revenue. Compliance programs will be critical, as operators and individuals will be able to rely on a due diligence defence.

Key Risks for Platforms, Brands and Agencies

Bill C-34 introduces heightened risk across a broad range of industries and organizations. Key risks include affirmative duties of care, extraterritorial reach, transparency obligations that may reveal internal processes, AI-specific requirements for chatbot safety, and potentially significant penalties. This legislative initiative further reinforces a growing regulatory focus on youth protection, brand safety and AI governance.

Although the Bill is at an early legislative stage, organizations can begin preparing by reviewing content moderation and chatbot safety systems, mapping services against the Bill’s categories of regulation, preparing for potential Digital Safety Plan requirements, aligning privacy, cybersecurity, and AI governance functions. Affected organizations will need to stay prepared by monitoring forthcoming amendments to the Bill and the regulations, which are expected to define thresholds and technical standards.

Bill C-34 represents a substantial shift in Canada’s approach to digital safety and the online protection of children, and many operators will need to make meaningful operational and governance changes. Feel free to reach out for guidance on how your organization can move forward defensively in this new era of heightened risk.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.