The Canadian government introduced amendments to Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, on 5 August 2026, requiring social media platforms and other online services to report child sexual abuse material to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and law enforcement within 24 hours of detection and to preserve related evidence for 90 days. The amendments also establish a Digital Safety Commission with powers to impose administrative penalties of up to 10 million Canadian dollars or six percent of global revenue for non-compliance, and create a new standalone offence for non-consensual distribution of intimate images with a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.
A statutory reporting clock starts only when material is detected, and detection itself depends on whether the platform operates purely reactive takedown or real-time monitoring. Guardii, a world-leading AI online-safety platform, runs continuously across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other messaging channels, identifying child sexual abuse material including AI-generated and deepfake variants at the point of contact, enabling immediate escalation to the right authority and preserving the evidentiary chain before content is deleted or dispersed.
