Sen. Miville-Dechêne hopes new age assurance guidelines will settle criticisms of pornography bill

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) published new guidelines for privacy-protective age assurance use, which Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne hopes will quiet the criticisms swarming Bill S-209. For Miville-Dechêne, trying to push the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act over the finish line has been a five-year marathon encompassing three iterations of the bill, as well as a struggle to shake criticisms of its age assurance mandate. The bill aims to restrict minors from accessing pornography online, but it allows flexibility for the government to decide which online operators will be scoped into the regulation. The bill does not identify a specific method to conduct age assurance, as Miville-Dechêne says technology is changing so fast and legislation must be adaptable. However, the bill outlines that any method used — age-verification, age-estimation, or another alternative — must be “highly effective.” In her reworkings of the bill, Miville-Dechêne has tried to address the concerns raised about privacy risks associated with age assurance, including those from Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne. There will “always be some noise about the fact it’s not enough,” Miville-Dechêne said in an interview with The Wire Report. Yet, she believes strongly in the bill, saying “we cannot minimize the harm of pornography for kids.” In 2024, Dufresne recommended two changes to a previous iteration of the bill (formerly S-210): limit the scope of application of the bill, and enhance the criteria for age-verification and age-estimation methods. Then, in October 2025, Dufresne told the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee he was pleased to see his recommendations included in the new iteration of the act and supported its progression through Parliament. “Prioritizing privacy is a critical factor in protecting individuals to safely navigate the online world, which can also foster confidence in technologies, such as age assurance, and ensure that this bill can achieve its beneficial goal,” he said in French. Miville-Dechêne said if the commissioner is happy with the bill, that means it meets federal privacy standards. “There’s absolutely no contradiction between what he said in the guidance and my bill,” she said. In a report published on May 4, OPC called age assurance a “valuable mechanism” in advancing the goal of creating a safer, more privacy-protected online environment. The report found the most "significant" privacy risks associated with the technology are breach of information, tracking or profiling online activities, disproportionate collection of information, and unequal collection of information or access restrictions. But, the OPC noted, these risks are “not inherent to the use of age assurance,” and the report outlined risk mitigation strategies. In order to protect Canadians from data breaches, the OPC’s guidelines for age assurance developers called on providers to collect as little personal information as necessary for the verification, and delete all personal information (except the age result) after use. Miville-Dechêne agrees with the suggestion. “You can’t just collect a bunch of information on anything,” she said. “It has to be strictly what’s needed to do that age verification. So that's also a common ground we have.” As for preventing tracking or profiling of a user’s online activities, the OPC said age assurance service providers should share only the age result with the relying party, and not relay any other personal information about the user. The OPC also said age assurance methods should not disadvantage any group, such as the use of facial recognition software that is less accurate based on skin tone and gender identity or requiring documents not as readily available to certain marginalized groups. The report published guidelines for online operators to determine whether and how to use age assurance technology. If an operator intends to prevent access based on age results, wrote the OPC, the company must be able to demonstrate there is a legal requirement to do so or demonstrate a potential harm specific to children. If an operator intends to use age assurance to make accommodations for children by adjusting personal information practices, it must determine whether they pose a potential harm, determine whether a “non-trivial” number of children are likely to access the site, and consider alternative approaches to address the harms. The report noted the tool is one of many that can be used in “appropriate circumstances,” but that other means of regulating online harms should be considered. “We agree on the fact that and using personal information for the purpose of age assurance should only be done when necessary,” Miville-Dechêne said of the report. The senator says the alignment between the OPC’s guidelines and her bill is “a big step forward.” “I really hope that this alignment will help ease the fears,” she said. “And I need to stay hopeful, because this has been a long journey.” mcollins@thewirereport.ca

Sen. Miville-Dechêne hopes new age assurance guidelines will settle criticisms of pornography bill

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By Maria Collins
|May 7, 2026

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