Set social‑media minimum age 18

AI summary

Petitioners ask Canada to set social‑media minimum age 18 with mandatory age verification and back Bill S‑209. The government responds that Bill C‑34 sets 16 for social media and 18 for porn with safeguards.

AI summaries describe petitioners’ requests and claims. Consult the official record for the full text.

Official petition

Petition to the Government of Canada We, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, call on the Government of Canada to note the following: Whereas: Smartphones give Canadian children direct access to harmful online content, with children getting their own devices at increasingly younger ages. Algorithm-driven social media platforms are designed to keep users hooked, harming youth mental health and well-being. Rising social media use among young Canadians is contributing to a worsening mental health crisis, putting added strain on healthcare and social services. Parents find it increasingly difficult to limit social media access across devices and apps. Australia has recognized these concerning facts and set a minimum social media age of 16, and similar laws are being debated in New Zealand, Sweden, and Spain, reflecting growing global awareness. Social media and smartphone access exposes children to pornographic and other harmful online content at an early age, with no meaningful age verification laws in place to offer them protection. Therefore, we, the undersigned, petition the Government of Canada to: 1. Establish a minimum age of 18 for accessing social media platforms, supported by mandatory and effective age-verification measures. 2. Support Bill S-209, An Act to restrict young persons' online access to pornographic material.

Government response

Response by the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages Signed by The Honourable Marc Miller The Government of Canada would like to thank the petitioners for expressing their concerns regarding the important issue of protecting young people online. The Government agrees that children should have an age-appropriate experience online and wants to ensure that the best solution is put forward to keep children safe. This is why Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act recognizes that children risk experiencing harm online by using social media and introduces several measures that ensure the protection of children. The Safe Social Media Act includes the Duty to Protect Children as one of its core duties. This Duty requires all regulated services, including social media services and Artificial Intelligence chatbot services, to implement age-appropriate protections and safeguards for younger users. This includes age-appropriate design, child-focused risk mitigation, and measures intended to reduce children’s exposure to harmful material and high-risk online interactions. The Duty to Protect Children also establishes a minimum-age restriction for accessing pornographic content on regulated services and sets an age threshold of 18 for viewing pornographic content. In addition, the legislation establishes a minimum age of 16 to access social media services with an account. While young persons aged 16 to 17 will not be restricted from making an account on a social media service, these services will still need to provide them with an age-appropriate experience. This includes age restrictions on pornographic content and could include obligations to limit certain harmful features. If the Bill is passed, it would establish the Digital Safety Commission of Canada which could issue both regulations and guidelines on the specific harmful features to avoid. The age restriction on social media accounts would allow for an exemption process in the future, should the Commission determine that a service has implemented sufficient safeguards for children. To implement age restrictions on having social media accounts and accessing pornographic content, operators of a regulated service will be required to put in place effective age-verification or age-estimation measures that preserve privacy and protect personal data. The age of 16 is the most common among other international jurisdictions that have proposed similar social media age restrictions. Since the minimum age was implemented in Australia, other like-minded countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Portugal and Norway have either introduced legislation or launched consultations on implementing a similar regime. The Government of Canada is committed to protecting Canadians – especially children – from harm online. A social media minimum age requirement of 16 alongside age-appropriate design obligations enforced by the Digital Safety Commission would create meaningful changes in how children use and experience the Internet.