{"id":282213,"date":"2026-06-26T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/26\/critics-caution-against-complex-regulator-with-two-heads-for-social-media-privacy-laws-the-hill-times\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T05:10:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T09:10:32","slug":"critics-caution-against-complex-regulator-with-two-heads-for-social-media-privacy-laws-the-hill-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/26\/critics-caution-against-complex-regulator-with-two-heads-for-social-media-privacy-laws-the-hill-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Critics caution against ‘complex regulator with two heads\u2019 for social media, privacy laws – The Hill Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Critics caution against ‘complex regulator with two heads\u2019 for social media, privacy laws – The Hill Times<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.hilltimes.com\/2026\/06\/26\/critics-caution-against-complex-regulator-with-two-heads-for-social-media-privacy-laws\/509456\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-26 05:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.hilltimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Privacy experts warn the Liberal government\u2019s proposal to create a \u201csuper regulator\u201d to enforce laws governing social media and privacy legislation risks weakening Canada\u2019s privacy protection regime by reducing the role of the federal privacy commissioner.<\/p>\n

Both Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, and Bill C-36, Protecting Privacy and Consumer Data Act, were introduced earlier this month as a legislative one-two punch in response to calls to restrict social media use for children, and update Canada\u2019s aging privacy laws for the age of artificial intelligence. Both pieces of legislation rely heavily on a not-yet-developed regulatory office for enforcement. Officials have estimated the office would be up and running in 18 to 24 months after the legislation comes into effect, and will be called the Digital Safety and Data Protection Commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are huge concerns with what the government has in mind. It\u2019s effectively creating a super-regulator, and I think from both bills it raises some real issues,\u201d said Michael Geist, a law professor and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa.<\/p>\n

\"\"Michael Geist, a law professor and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, called it a \u2018huge mistake\u2019 to reduce the privacy commissioner\u2019s private-sector oversight role. The Hill Times photograph by Andrews Meade <\/p>\n

On the social media front, this commission will establish age verification standards for social media platforms, and can also decide if a platform has taken sufficient steps to make their sites safe for teens. Doing so\u00a0could exempt the platform from being forced to ban users under 16 years old. Under the privacy legislation, the regulator will consider and investigate complaints from the public, launch its own complaints, issue orders, and has other powers. Under both sets of legislation, the regulator will have the power to investigate and…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Critics caution against ‘complex regulator with two heads\u2019 for social media, privacy laws – The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":282216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hilltimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/MixCollage-25-Jun-2026-11-21-AM-8729.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282217,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282213\/revisions\/282217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}