Bill S-209 will have no impact on any adult’s ability to access pornographic content online. All legal pornography available online today will continue to be accessible to adults once Bill S-209 is passed. The only difference is that accessing pornographic websites will require a quick age verification process. 

As Prof. Pierre Trudel said in his testimony in support of the previous version of the bill:

This bill is not about banning sexually explicit material; rather, it is about limiting access to individuals who demonstrate that they are 18 or older. It requires that organizations take reasonable steps to verify the age of individuals who access sexually explicit content. In that sense, Bill S-210 [predecessor of Bill-209] establishes, and explicitly lays out, a duty of care for online platforms, which earn considerable revenue from the distribution of videos and other online content.

Professor Pierre Trudel, Centre for Research in Public Law, Faculty of Law, Université de Montréal

Bill S-209 uses the term pornographic material rather than sexually explicit material in order to provide a more precise definition. It defines this new term as follows, using the most relevant portion of the current Criminal Code definition:

“pornographic material means any photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means, the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a person’s genital organs or anal region or, if the person is female, her breasts, but does not include child pornography as defined in subsection 163.1(1) of the Criminal Code. (matériel pornographique)”

It is important to highlight the passage: “… for a sexual purpose.” A simple scene involving nudity, on its own, is not considered pornographic material. The bill also specifies exceptions for pornographic material used for legitimate purposes related to science, medicine, education, or the arts. For instance, a television series on HBO could fall under this category.

This measure is not a matter of censorship, but rather one of protecting children. It follows the same principle by which society regulates access to alcohol and drugs, requiring retailers to verify the age of purchasers.

Bill S-209 only applies to organizations (as defined in section 2 of the Criminal Code) and not to individuals.

Bill S-209 is a straightforward and focused piece of legislation: to access pornographic material, websites must verify that their users are 18 or older. Websites that specialize in pornographic content will be required to implement prescribed age verification mechanisms before users can access the site. Websites that offer pornographic and non-pornographic content may be required to verify the age of their users before they can access the pornographic portions. Because most websites do not host pornographic content, they will not be affected by S-209. The age verification obligations under Bill S-209 are similar to those imposed under the Online Safety Act in the UK, whereby Internet services have “a duty to ensure, by the use of age verification or age estimation (or both), that children are not normally able to encounter pornographic content.” The European Union, France, Germany, Australia, 20 other States in the US and other jurisdictions have also adopted similar rules in recent years.

During the Senate study of Bill S-210 (predecessor of S-209), Colin McKay, head of public policy and government relations at Google Canada told the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that implementing age verification measures on web sites offering pornographic content was in fact “the most immediate and the most practical” mechanism to address the challenge of limiting minors’ access to online porn and that “content providers are best positioned to establish the risk associated with their service and put in place the right method to limit access to the service by underage users.”

Bill S-209 does not cover all Internet sites and platforms, only those that offer pornographic material, as defined in the bill. In fact, the age-verification or age estimation obligation does not even apply to the sites and platforms themselves, only to the pornographic material. This means that, for example, if a website or platform contains 20% of pornographic content and 80% of non-pornographic content, only the 20% of pornographic content would be subject to the age-verification or age estimation obligation. The rest of the site would be freely accessible to anyone. 

Some age-verification bills indeed set a threshold, such as 33% of pornographic content (as in a bill passed unanimously by the Florida House of Representatives), to impose an age-verification obligation on websites or platforms. However, these thresholds are arbitrary, and could allow a website with 20% of porn content to make this content available to children without age verification. Bill S-209 adopts a more focused approach, centered only on limiting minors’ access to pornographic material. In the UK, the Online Safety Bill has also adopted this approach.

First, it should be noted that age estimation was added to the latest version of the bill because, in recent years, artificial intelligence–powered facial age estimation has become much more accurate, with a significantly reduced margin of error. This technique does not require proof of identity, which means far less personal data is collected. In addition, a new French technology can estimate a person’s age using only a video of a moving hand, further reducing privacy risks.

When discussing Bill S-209, it is essential to distinguish between the what and the how. The bill addresses the what: preventing children from accessing online pornography by ensuring that users are over 18. The how—the specific age-verification and age estimation methods and processes—is a technical matter that will evolve with technology.

For this reason, the bill does not prescribe any single approach. It neither mandates nor implies the use of digital identification, facial recognition, or any particular method. Instead, it stipulates that any government-approved age-verification system must:

• be highly effective;
• be operated by a third-party organization that deals at arm’s length from any organization making pornographic material available on the Internet for commercial purposes;
• maintain user privacy and protect user personal information;
• collect and use personal information solely for age-verification or age-estimation purposes, except to the extent required by law.

While legitimate debates exist over the effectiveness and desirability of different age-verification or age-estimation methods, such discussions are premature. Only once the bill is passed will the regulatory stage allow for consultations on the merits and limits of various tools and processes.

Privacy and the protection of personal information are vital considerations, and they are specifically addressed in clause 12(2) of Bill S-209. In the latest version of the bill, these principles have been significantly strengthened.

The clause requires that, before authorizing any age-verification method, regulations must ensure that the method:

1. is highly effective;
2. is operated by a third-party organization that deals at arm’s length from any organization making pornographic material available on the Internet for commercial purposes;
3. maintains user privacy and protects user personal information;
4. collects and uses personal information solely for age-verification or age-estimation purposes, except to the extent required by law;

This new clause is also based on comments made by Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne during the committee study in the House of Commons (SECU).

The simple answer is no.

In clause 6 of Bill S-209, it is stated that:

“an organization that incidentally and not deliberately provides a service that is used to search for, transmit, download, store or access content on the Internet that is alleged to constitute pornographic material does not make available pornographic material on the Internet for commercial purposes.”

Large pornographic platforms and other opponents of age verification sometimes claim that imposing age checks on online pornography will cause age-verified sites to become less popular as users refuse to access them (thus raising bounce rates) and that illegal, unverified sites will feature more prominently on Google and other search engines if their bounce rates are lower. But that is incorrect. As Colin McKay, of Google Canada, testified, search engines attach more importance to the illegality of a website than to its bounce rate when delivering search results. As a consequence, porn websites that do not implement age verification mechanisms, in violation of the law, would actually be disadvantaged in Internet search results.

Indeed, the implementation of age verification in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2025, led to a surge in VPN sales. However, experts suggest that solutions exist. For example, adult sites could block access to VPN users—something many streaming platforms already do. Moreover, VPN providers know the IP addresses of their clients and, therefore, their actual location. They also know the IP addresses of the sites their clients attempt to access, including those that may be prohibited to minors under the law.

That being said, no law is ever perfect. Even in the offline world, minors sometimes succeed in obtaining alcohol, tobacco, or pornographic materials despite laws designed to prevent this. We should expect similar limitations online.

As age-verification expert, John Carr notes:

“It is a convenient myth that every child is a super-cool internet user who knows every technical trick in the book and wants to break every rule or ignore every boundary. (…) The evidence points in a different direction and suggests that, in fact, most kids do not know how to get around most blocks and even among those who do only a small proportion (6%) actually bother.”

Similarly, Prof. Pierre Trudel testified:

“I think that any law can be circumvented and, in my opinion, that is not an appropriate criterion. We cannot use the fact that a piece of legislation can be circumvented to say that it has no purpose. Otherwise, the entire Criminal Code should be abolished because, unfortunately, many of its provisions are circumvented or ignored in Canada daily. So I think the real issue is about ensuring that laws are updated to promote the deployment of technologies such as age verification.”

Bill S-209 proposes two enforcement tracks. At clause 5, the bill imposes fines of up to $250,000 for a first offence, and up to $500,000 for a repeat offence, for organizations that fail to implement approved age verification methods after receiving a notice. For organizations that continue to ignore the law, Bill S-209 offers another enforcement process, spelled out in clause 9. In this case, the government’s enforcement authority can apply to the Federal Court for an order requiring Internet service providers to prevent access to the offending website in Canada.

In a brief submitted to the Senate committee studying Bill S-210 (predecessor), Bell Canada’s Chief Legal and Regulatory Officer confirmed that “it is possible to target a single site for blocking, with minimal to no risk of blocking access to other legitimate content, if proper safeguards are in place and appropriate verification is carried out by the organization creating the list of locations to be blocked prior to any ISPs being directed to block them.” The brief also dismissed past concerns about over-blocking by stating unequivocally that a “twenty year old incident is not indicative of how site blocking is implemented in dozens of countries around the world today.”

Parents have a primary responsibility to educate their kids and supervise their online habits. School sex education programs are also critical. But this does not mean that the government should abdicate all responsibility for protecting children. Parents also have a duty to educate their kids about alcohol, tobacco and gambling, but this in no way prevents the government from adopting laws to require businesses to verify the age of their customers. Internet filters have limited effectiveness. In the age of mobile phones and free porn sites, parents have become almost completely powerless to supervise their children’s online activities. The case for targeted government intervention is clear.

A 2024 Léger poll shows broad support across Canada for age verification to access online pornography,with 77% of respondents favourable to such measures and only 13% opposed. Moreover, Bill S- 209 is supported by the National Council of Women of Canada, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, the International Centre on Sexual Exploitation, the Québec Association of Pediatricians, the Digital Governance Council and several others. Many other associations and experts have expressed support for Bill S-209 or its predecessor (Bill S-210), including the Canadian Pediatric Society, the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the London Abused Women Center, the Concertation des luttes contre l’exploitation sexuelle and others. Bill S-S210 – Bill S-209’s predecessor was a non-partisan bill that passed with no opposition in the Senate and is supported by four out of the five parties represented in the House of Commons: the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party and the Conservative Party, along with 15 Liberal MPs.

In this brief to the Senate from Bill-210 (the predecessor of Bill S-209), the International Centre on Sexual Exploitation writes: “Public opinion surveys from other democratic countries have found that the majority of adults support implementing age verification to protect children from pornography exposure. For example, 2019 research in the United Kingdom found that 83% of parents agreed that there should be robust age verification controls in place to stop children from viewing pornography online. 2021 research from Australia found that 78% of adults supported age verification to prevent childhood pornography exposure.”

Previously, during the Senate study of Bill S-210 (predecessor of Bill-209), out of a total of 26 witnesses and briefs, only five (including a representative of Pornhub) opposed the bill. The other 21 witnesses and briefs supported of the Bill, sometimes with a few amendments.

Yes. In fact, the number of jurisdictions implementing meaningful age verification processes for online pornography is increasing quickly. The  adopted such a rule. Germany has had strong age verification laws since 2002 and . France adopted an In the fall of 2023, the United Kingdom adopted its Online Safety Act. Additionally, July 25^th of 2025, age verification was implemented in the UK.

In the United States, the states of Louisiana, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas and others have passed age verification laws with overwhelming bipartisan support. A challenge to the Louisiana law was rejected in October 2023.  The US Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of the Texas age verification law in 2025. Also, more than 20 other U.S. states have age verification laws. 

Australia, which had paused its earlier age-verification plans, has now completed a landmark Age Assurance Technology Trial. The trial tested more than 60 solutions and found that age assurance can be delivered privately, efficiently, and effectively. Starting from March 9^th, 2026, pornographic websites will need to take “appropriate age assurance measures” to verify that users are over the age of 18.

In 2021, the UN published General comment No. 25 on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment, in connection with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This comment states that “Robust age verification systems should be used to prevent children from acquiring access to products and services that are illegal for them to own or use.” Pornographic material is illegal for children to access.