To celebrate the beginning of this year’s Privacy Awareness Week, Privacy Commissioner of Canada Philippe Dufresne has released new guidance documents on age assurance, designed for age assurance developers and operators of websites and online services that use such processes.
“Age assurance can be a valuable mechanism to advance the goal of reducing potential harms experienced by children online,” Dufresne said in a news release from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC).
The OPC explained that the guidance, informed by input from a public consultation, seeks to help organizations:
- Provide a safer and more appropriate online experience for children
- Minimize possible negative impacts on privacy
- Assess when to use age assurance
- Address the relevant design features or privacy considerations when designing and utilizing age assurance systems
“In providing this new guidance on age assurance, my aim is to help organizations to implement age assurance in ways that mitigate the impacts on privacy,” Dufresne said.
Children’s Privacy Code
In his keynote address at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) Canada Symposium in Toronto, Dufresne discussed the findings in a new report on the possible development of a Children’s Privacy Code in Canada.
The OPC also published reports with insights gleaned from its focus groups on Canadian youth’s online experiences in connection with data privacy and from a November 2025 youth summit, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Ottawa and McGill University, focusing on children’s best interests in the digital environment.
“As Canadian children spend a significant portion of their lives online, it is essential that their experiences, and the technologies that they use, are developed and deployed in a safe and responsible manner that promotes and protects the best interests of children,” Dufresne said in the OPC’s news release.
The OPC noted that it is working on drafting a Children’s Privacy Code that addresses the priority areas raised by the youth summit’s participants and reflects the responses received at an exploratory consultation.
Business survey on privacy
In his speech, Dufresne also shared the findings from the OPC’s latest survey of Canadian businesses on privacy issues, with a focus on businesses directly selling or offering services or products to individual consumers.
Of businesses surveyed:
- 91 percent made efforts to ensure their company’s compliance with Canadian privacy laws
- 84 percent had a privacy policy
- 90 percent said they were at least moderately prepared to respond to data breaches