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I was at an event last week focused on youth privacy issues and how young people are inheriting a whole new world that requires skills, knowledge and savvy to navigate. Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne moderated the day's first panel which featured a handful of some of the most impactful speakers I've heard in a while.

His panel involved interviewing a number of younger people — mid to older teens — about what they thought about privacy, privacy laws, artificial intelligence and data regulation, and it was fantastic. Their presentations were thoughtful, humorous, insightful and genuinely human. I'm going to enjoy watching from the sidelines as these individuals develop their careers.

What was cool was that these young people stuck around for the entire day and as different presentations were made on the main stage, at each turn, they asked from their table in the audience — over the microphone so that everyone could hear — some pointed and difficult questions of the presenters. And these, I would add, were not planted questions.

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I thought it was particularly meaningful because the data protection authorities from the G7 countries were all listening and taking notes. I know from the final DPA remarks and the cocktail reception after the event that they were all influenced by the day's conversations and interactions. I shared quite a few details about the day in a LinkedIn post, so those who were not there could get a flavor of it.

Youth privacy is a big concern today and I'm totally on-board with creating a better environment for them as they explore this new frontier. Some of my clients are social media companies and I can see from working with them that they want to do right by our planet's youth. One of my clients has me do a weekly scan of anything that might be relevant to them just in this space alone — it's that important.

Late last week an opposition party member of Parliament introduced Bill C-216, a private-member's bill called "An Act to enact the Protection of Minors in the Digital Age Act and to amend two Acts." Private member's bills rarely get through the legislative process. This one, however, may have some merit, so we will be watching it closely when Parliament resumes in the fall.

Here is a quick summary of the proposed new law:

Protection of Minors in the Digital Age Act

  • Requires online platforms to protect minors' privacy, health and well-being.
  • Imposes a duty of care on operators to prevent online harm to minors.
  • Mandates safeguards like parental controls, age verification, and restricting addictive features and geolocation sharing.
  • Requires operators to provide clear information on data use, safety settings and advertising practices.
  • Requires independent review every two years and annual public risk reports.
  •  Enables fines of up to CAD25 million for offences; due diligence is a defense.
  • Grants a private right of action for minors or parents suffering serious harm.

Mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse material

  • Expands mandatory reporting for internet service providers to include more service types.
  • Requires transmission data with reports of manifest child sexual abuse material.
  • Extends data preservation and prosecution periods and requires annual reporting to ministers.

Criminal Code amendments

  • Prohibits publishing false intimate images created by software, including AI.
  • Creates new offence for online criminal harassment, with aggravated sentencing for anonymous or false identity communication.
  • Enables courts to order identification of anonymous online harassers and impose communication bans.

To say the least, partisan politics aside, this issue is a pressing and important one. In fact, it is one of the most important of our generation and the world we leave our kids and grandkids. (The youngest just graduated high school this week. I'm not in a rush; just sayin'.)

Let's collectively build on the momentum to figure out ways this can be done and done in a way that, as the young people said last week, respects their privacy but also their autonomy and ability to grow, explore, be creative and be human.

Kris Klein, CIPP/C, CIPM, FIP, is the managing director, Canada, for the IAPP.

This article originally appeared in the Canada Dashboard Digest, a free weekly IAPP newsletter. Subscriptions to this and other IAPP newsletters can be found here.