News

What we hope we see coming this quarter is the passing of Bill C-16 (currently in committee in the House of Commons)—or at least the parts of it that criminalize the circulation of “deepfakes” in the form of intimate images. 

Criminal court provides significant discussion of screening electronic evidence for AI fakery

In R. v. Medow, Justice Brock Jones of the Ontario Court of Justice presided over the trial of a man accused of various offences, including impersonating a police officer, obstructing a police officer during the course of his duties and assaulting a police officer causing bodily harm. The charges arose out of an encounter between the accused and a police officer who was conducting a traffic stop of a motorist, and the entire encounter was recorded on both the officer’s bodycam and the in-car camera in his squad car. At trial the accused questioned the authenticity of the camera footage, suggesting it had been digitally altered or was even a “deepfake,” all related to what he alleged was a police conspiracy to frame him.

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Internet-delivered services that extend beyond provincial boundaries are within exclusive federal jurisdiction, Ontario Divisional Court finds

A unanimous three judge panel of the Ontario Divisional Court affirmed a decision of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), which found that Meta Platforms’s Facebook service is outside of provincial jurisdiction. The conclusion, in Trudel v. Meta Platforms Inc., may have implications well beyond human rights adjudication.

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Even location-agnostic scraping of web content can create a “real and substantial connection” for privacy laws to apply.

As part of an ongoing, multi-jurisdictional fight following an investigation by federal and provincial privacy regulators into the company’s practices, Clearview AI lost its appeal in the British Columbia Court of Appeal over whether the province’s Personal Information Protection Act (“PIPA”) could apply to their activities that were directed from outside of Canada.

Access to subscriber information is scaled back from Bill C-2, but mandatory lawful access capabilities remain very broad

On March 12, 2026, the Public Safety Minister tabled Bill C-22, the proposed “Lawful Access Act, 2026” in Parliament. It represents the latest iteration in a long line of Canadian legislative efforts to expand law enforcement and national security access to digital information, and it reflects both continuity with, and refinement of, the earlier proposals contained in Bill C-2 (the Strong Borders Act).

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Slightly modified version of previous bill re-introduced after recent federal election.

Though Bill S-210, Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act, fell off the order paper when Parliament was prorogued, the Bill’s sponsor Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne has reintroduced it with some modifications in the current session as Bill S-209.

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Social media platform applies for judicial review of BC Civil Resolution Tribunal order to take down image worldwide.

In the September issue of this newsletter, we reported on the case of Re X Corp., 2025 BCCRT 1228, a decision of the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal (“CRT”). The CRT had earlier issued a decision under the BC Intimate Images Act, ordering X (formerly Twitter) to take down certain intimate images of the complainant. X responded by “geo-fencing” the images, which made them inaccessible from Canada. In a further proceeding by the complainant, the CRT ruled that geo-fencing was inadequate and that X had not complied with the order. It ordered X to take down the images globally and fined it $100,000.00, the highest available penalty from that body.

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Parties, lawyers and judges continue to face sanctions for improper use of generative AI in cases.

This newsletter has previously reported on cases where improper use of generative AI has had repercussions in the conduct of legal proceedings, in Canada and elsewhere. We come to the topic yet again, however, to note that what began as a trickle has become a stream—and perhaps the harbinger of a flood.

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In order to sue for invasion of privacy, one has to have an expectation of privacy in the information at issue.

The British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision in RateMDs Inc. v. Bleuler clarifies the limits of statutory privacy torts under the BC Privacy Act in the context of online review platforms. The case arose after Dr. Ramona Bleuler, a British Columbia physician, discovered that RateMDs.com—a website hosting reviews, ratings, and comparative rankings of health professionals—had created a profile for her without her consent. The profile contained her name, professional contact information, anonymous user reviews, and a ranking relative to other physicians.

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French government says the records are lawfully available via diplomatic channels, but a Canadian order to produce them despite a French blocking statute is upheld on review.

While the Canadian government is contemplating “digital sovereignty” for Canadian data, an Ontario court has ordered a French company to produce records in violation of a law designed to protect French data sovereignty.

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