The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has announced that it is requesting additional stakeholder input on the next steps of its initiative to develop a machine-readable dataset of documents, including securities statutes, regulations, rules, and policies.
“The OSC is exploring how a machine‑readable regulatory framework could reduce compliance burden and translate rules into clear, consistent data that firms can build into their systems from the outset,” said Leslie Byberg, the OSC’s executive vice president for strategic regulation, in a news release.
Those interested can provide their comments until June 30 to help the OSC support investors, industry, and regulatory technology innovators through the planned machine-readable dataset.
To advance its initiative, the OSC released an overview explaining how a machine-readable dataset could enhance access to securities regulation in the province.
The proposed machine-readable regulatory framework will seek to help capital market participants more easily navigate clear, usable securities rules and regulations and reduce regulatory burden.
“This could result in lower costs and faster compliance, allowing resources to be focused on serving investors and enhancing Ontario’s capital markets,” Byberg said in the OSC’s news release.
Context of initiative
In its 2026–27 statement of priorities, the OSC committed to developing a proof of concept for a machine-readable version of Ontario’s securities regulation.
Prior to its recent announcement seeking further feedback, the OSC made preliminary efforts to assess the feasibility and potential effects of utilizing machine-assisted annotations, made by OSC experts, to label and classify segments of the pertinent statutes, regulations, rules, and policies.
The OSC expects these annotations to make compliance more accurate and efficient by improving searchability, highlighting connections across documents, and helping humans and computers alike comprehend and analyze the regulatory framework.
As part of its preliminary work, the OSC gathered early input from stakeholders regarding this initiative last year. RegGenome, a regulatory data technology company, supported the OSC in these efforts.
The OSC aims to safeguard investors from unfair or fraudulent practices, promote efficient and competitive capital markets that inspire confidence, foster capital formation, and help keep the financial system stable and reduce systemic risk.