Dear Minister,
We’d like to thank you for your service to all Canadians. Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada are important and demanding portfolios. We appreciate the time and commitment they require.
We are grateful that the government is seeking to hold online platforms accountable for hosting and distributing child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) and for the non-consensual distribution of intimate images (NCDII) as part of its planned online harms legislation.
Commercial pornography sites that knowingly profit from sexual abuse and exploitation must be held accountable. It is evident that the current regime is not effectively addressing these online harms and government action is needed. These platforms must not be left to self-regulate.
We support the establishment of a legislative and regulatory framework to address online harms related to CSAM and NDII, with significant penalties for non-compliance. There are unique considerations to dealing with these offences and they should be dealt with separately from other online harms.
Children and youth face devastating, lifelong consequences when videos and images of their abuse and exploitation are streamed and distributed. International survivors of child sexual abuse whose abuse was recorded indicate that the imagery impacted them in a different way than the initial abuse. As the Canadian Centre for Child Protection notes, the recording of abuse and its distribution adds “an extraordinary layer of trauma for a victim.”[1] Part of the impact survivors describe is that the distribution of images may never end. They feel powerless to stop the ongoing distribution.
In the Ethics Committee study of the protection of privacy and reputation on platforms such as Pornhub in 2021, it heard harrowing testimony from survivors of the online harms they had experienced. Their images were posted on Pornhub without their knowledge or consent and they fought a difficult battle to try to get the images taken down. The images were of the survivors as teens or young women being sexually assaulted, or intimate images that were recorded or uploaded without their consent. As the committee report notes, “These survivors shared the trauma of having abusive images of them uploaded online without their knowledge or consent—many of which depicted activities undertaken or recorded without their consent, or both. Some explained how the upload of their images revictimized them; it allowed pornography sites to profit from their violation and allowed viewers to take pleasure in, comment on, download and re-upload that experience.”[2]
The onus must not be on youth to monitor commercial pornography sites to ensure that depictions of their abuse and exploitation are not posted or, if discovered, to ensure they are swiftly removed. The onus must not be on victims of non-consensual uploads to watch for the content and ensure it is removed.
Online Content Service Providers (OCSPs) must be responsible for ensuring that the content they host and monetize is not child sexual abuse material, that the people depicted are not minors, and that there is consent for these images to be posted. They must have mechanisms in place to ensure illegal content is never uploaded in the first place.
CSAM is evidence of criminal activity that has occurred and that may be ongoing. With respect to NCDII, the content may be unlawful in its distribution only, or may also be evidence of criminal activity if the individual was filmed without their consent or is a victim of trafficking.
Requirements related to removing, reporting and preservation of information should be clearly tailored for these particular harms. It is not sufficient to require OCSPs to make content inaccessible within 24 hours after it has been flagged. For victims of CSAM and NCDII, 24 hours allows their images to be viewed, downloaded and distributed millions of times. It is essential to put in place proactive and preventative measures.
We recommend the government develop a legislative and regulatory framework to require online pornography platforms to verify the age and consent of those featured in content before it is uploaded to their sites, as recommended by the Ethics Committee in its 2021 report. This would be a critical measure to strengthen the digital safety of Canadians and prevent significant online harms.
We recommend the government:
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address CSAM and NCDII specifically and immediately, in separate legislation from other online harms
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create an ombud to help victims and advocate on their behalf for the removal of child sexual abuse materials and intimate images distributed without consent
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continue to work closely with international partners to address online sexual exploitation, as it is a global issue that transcends borders and requires close cooperation.
Kind regards,
Julia Beazley
Director, Public Policy
The EFC’s Centre for Faith and Public Life
613-233-9868 x323
[1] Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Survivors Survey Full Report 2017, p. 147, https://protectchildren.ca/pdfs/C3P_SurvivorsSurveyFullReport2017.pdf
[2] https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/432/ETHI/Reports/RP11148202/ethirp03/ethirp03-e.pdf
Author:
Julia Beazley