Canada: Introduced the Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act (C-63/44), including content moderation regulation

On 26 February 2024, the Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, and the Canadian Human Rights Act (C-63/44), including content moderation regulation, was introduced into the Parliament of Canada. The Act aims to promote online safety in Canada, protect children's health, reduce exposure to harmful content, protect freedom of expression, and develop standards for online safety. The Act requires operators to take reasonable measures to minimise users' exposure to harmful content. The Commission will assess the appropriateness of these measures based on factors such as effectiveness, service size, and operator capacity to ensure that they do not disproportionately restrict the expression of opinions. User guidelines must be made publicly available and must include standards for dealing with harmful content and a description of the measures taken. Operators should provide users with tools to block other users and report harmful content. A resource officer should be available to assist users with concerns about harmful content and refer them to appropriate internal and external resources. A digital security plan outlining compliance with regulations and the effectiveness of measures must be submitted to the responsible commission. Operators of regulated services must ensure that content depicting child sexual abuse, survivor re-abuse, or intimate content shared without consent is made inaccessible to anyone in Canada within 24 hours of being identified or notified by a user. Additionally, a duty to preserve certain harmful content is established for one year from the date that the content becomes inaccessible.