Law Bytes

Law Bytes

In recent years the intersection between law, technology, and policy has exploded as digital policy has become a mainstream concern in Canada and around the world. This podcast explores digital policies in conversations with people studying the legal and policy challenges, set the rules, or are experts in the field. It provides a Canadian perspective, but since the internet is global, examining international developments and Canada’s role in shaping global digital policy is be an important part of the story. Lawbytes is hosted by Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law and where he is a member of the Centre for Law, Technology and Society.

Episodes

Episode 278: Ben Waldman on Gander Social and the Challenges of Building a Sovereign Social Network

August 10, 2026 • 34 mins
Sovereignty, whether digital sovereignty, data sovereignty, or AI sovereignty, has been the hot-button issue in Canada for months. Governments have shifted policies in hopes of addressing the issue, the public has expressed interest in Canadian alternatives, and the business community has rushed to meet that interest. But what does it actually take to create a true, sovereign alternative? We now have a live experiment with Gander, ...
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Episode 277: Kate Robertson on the Risks That Lie Behind Canada's Unexpected Signing of the UN Cybercrime Convention

July 27, 2026 • 46 mins
The Canadian government’s surprise decision to sign the UN Cybercrime Convention has sparked many questions about the convention, its risks, and what changed over the past nine months between Canada no-showing the signing in Vietnam and this month’s reversal. To help answer those questions, there is no one better than Kate Robertson, a senior research associate at the Citizen Lab, who has been vocal on the convention si...
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Episode 276: Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard on Canada’s Access to Information Failures and Why Access Delayed is Access Denied

July 20, 2026 • 33 mins
Despite repeated studies and promises for reform, Canada’s access to information system has long been plagued by long delays, overbroad exclusions, insufficient resources, and an Information Commissioner without the resources and powers needed to fully ensure compliance. The government is currently undertaking yet another reform process as the Treasury Board has released proposed changes. They’ve left Caroline Maynard, ...
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Episode 275: David Loukidelis on Why Stripping Privacy Enforcement from Canada’s Privacy Commissioner in Bill C-36 is Unnecessarily Risky Policy

July 6, 2026 • 31 mins
The government’s privacy reform bill was supposed to earn applause for its effort to modernize outdated rules and provide Canadians with stronger privacy protections. Yet the decision to strip the Privacy Commissioner of Canada of responsibility for private-sector privacy law and shift that responsibility to the Digital Safety Commission has sparked widespread concern among Canadian privacy experts. This week’s Law Byte...
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Episode 274: Mark Musselman on What Stakeholders Really Think About the Government’s Reversal of the CRTC Online Streaming Act Decision

June 29, 2026 • 32 mins
Earlier this month, the government shocked the culture sector by announcing it was effectively reversing the CRTC decision that implemented the Online Streaming Act. Culture Minister Marc Miller tried to cushion the blow with a promise of $600 million in support for the audio and audiovisual sectors, but there was no escaping the anger from some over abandoning a policy that had been years in the making. Mark Musselman is a former ...
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Episode 273: Rebroadcast of the Globe and Mail’s The Decibel on Canada’s First Steps Towards a Social Media Ban

June 22, 2026 • 28 mins
Bill C-34, the Safe Social Media Act, has quickly become a lightning rod for debate since its introduction earlier this month. The issue that invariably tops the list is the kids’ social media ban. Bill C-34, along with the recently introduced Bill C-36, will be covered from multiple angles in the weeks ahead. For the moment, I am pleased to rebroadcast a recent episode of the Globe and Mail’s The Decibel podcast. I was...
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Episode 272: Build Canada’s Lucy Hargreaves on Canada’s AI Strategy and the Need to Shift From Being Users to Builders

June 15, 2026 • 35 mins
The release of the government’s AI strategy has sparked a wide range of reactions and a flurry of additional legislative initiatives. While the legislative side is being fleshed out, the debate over the broader strategy remains, including whether it features sufficient safeguards and enough ambition. To address the latter issue, Lucy Hargreaves, the Co-Founder and CEO of Build Canada, joins the Law Bytes podcast to assess the...
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Episode 271: Taking Stock of a Wild Week in Canadian Digital Policy With the Online Streaming Reversal, AI Strategy Release, and Lawful Access Review

June 8, 2026 • 18 mins
In the span of a few days last week, the government announced it was reversing the CRTC’s Online Streaming Act ruling, released its long-awaited national AI strategy, and kept pushing Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, through committee. Given that this may have been the most eventful week in Canadian digital policy in years, this week’s Law Bytes podcast takes a breath and brings everyone up to speed on the latest deve...
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Episode 270: Roundtable on the Bill C-22 Risks for Canadian Tech Companies Featuring VPN Services Tailscale and Windscribe

June 1, 2026 • 28 mins
Over the past week, the concerns over Bill C-22, the government’s lawful access bill, continued to mount. Many companies, notably including Apple, Google, Meta, Signal, and DuckDuckGo, have spoken out against the bill. So too has the VPN sector, with some warning that they can’t remain in Canada if the bill goes ahead as is. This week, the CEOs of two of the companies that have spoken out against Bill C-22 join the Law ...
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Episode 269: Inside the Bill C-22 Committee Hearing for the Case Against Government’s Lawful Access Plans

May 25, 2026 • 33 mins
The government’s lawful access bill has been the target of criticism for weeks, with companies, governments, and experts on privacy and security all sounding the alarm. Much of the momentum against the bill began to build once the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security held hearings on the legislation, providing an opportunity for critics to voice their concerns. Those hearings continue this week with both ...
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Episode 268: Sara Grimes on the Moral Panic Behind Banning Kids from Social Media and AI Chatbots

May 11, 2026 • 47 mins
The question of children’s social media and AI chatbot ban has emerged as one of the most talked-about digital policy issues in recent memory. Premiers, the Liberal convention, and the media have all jumped on board. But has the debate been driven by misinformation, leading to a moral panic? Dr. Sara Grimes has been working on children’s rights and digital policy for over twenty years. As the Wolfe Chair in Scientific a...
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Episode 267: Peter Nowak on Rogers, the Shaw Merger Aftermath, and the Limits of Canadian Telecom Policy

May 4, 2026 • 35 mins
The recent announcement that Rogers is offering buyouts to half of its workforce is just the tip of the iceberg in a series of developments involving one of Canada’s dominant communications companies. It has seen rising consumer complaints, is cutting capital expenditures, increasingly pivoting towards sports and media, and is now looking to cut its workforce dramatically. Three years after the Rogers-Shaw merger, is this sim...
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Episode 266: Justin Safayeni on the Ontario Government's Overnight Evisceration of Access to Information

April 27, 2026 • 43 mins
Just over a month ago, the Ford government tabled Bill 97, an omnibus bill with provisions fundamentally restructuring Ontario's access to information system. Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim responded with alarm, but the government rushed ahead with no hearings or public debate. The most significant rewrite of Ontario's access to information regime in nearly forty years became law within weeks. Justin Safayeni...
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Ep. 265 - Jason Millar on Claude Mythos, Project Glasswing, and the Governance Crisis in Frontier AI

April 20, 2026 • 34 mins
In a year in which AI has truly dominated much of the news cycle, the story of Anthropic’s Mythos may be the biggest story of them all. A version of the popular Claude AI service is reportedly so powerful that the company can’t release it to the public yet. As governments race to meet with company officials, there are serious cybersecurity risks, prompting many leading software companies to join a new working group to g...
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Episode 264: Jon Penney on Chilling Effects in the Digital Age

April 13, 2026 • 41 mins
“Chilling effects” is a term people hear all the time: in court rulings, in debates over content moderation, in dealing with online harms, or in news coverage of surveillance and legal reforms. The focus is typically on how legal rules may make speaking out more challenging, risky, or even dangerous. But what if our understanding of chilling effects actually understates the issue? Jon Penney is a law professor at Osgood...
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Episode 263: The Lawful Access Act Roundtable With David Fraser and Robert Diab

March 30, 2026 • 58 mins
Lawful access is back. The decades-long battle has entered a new phase with the introduction of Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act. This bill follows last spring’s attempt to bury lawful access provisions in Bill C-2, a border measures bill. The latest bill covers the two main aspects of lawful access: law enforcement access to personal information held by communication service providers such as ISPs and wireless prov...
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Episode 262: Zack Shapiro on the Claude AI Native Law Firm

March 23, 2026 • 42 mins
What are the limits of using AI to help run a legal practice? There is much discussion about what an AI future might look like, but with the rapid development of AI tools, the future may be now. The hot AI service of the moment is Claude AI, which targets various verticals, including software development and legal services. Zack Shapiro is a New York lawyer and the founder of the Rains law firm. He is a Yale Law School grad who cle...
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Episode 261: Ian Goldberg on the Privacy Risks of Age Assurance Technologies

March 16, 2026 • 32 mins
Age verification, estimation or inference is seemingly all the rage right now. Vendors are promoting it as the solution to thorny challenges to limit access to certain sites and services and politicians are eager to legislate in that direction, including in Canada with Bill S-209. Hundreds of scientists and technology experts from around the world have taken note of the trend and come together to issue a public letter warning about...
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Episode 260: What the Government Didn’t Want You To Hear About Bill C-4 And Its Weak Political Party Privacy Rules

March 9, 2026 • 44 mins
Last spring, the government quietly inserted provisions that exempt political parties from the application of privacy protections in Bill C-4, an “affordability measures” bill. The government barely acknowledged the provision in its the study of the bill at the House of Commons and refused to even hear witnesses on the issue. The Senate didn’t play along however. It conducted hearings on the privacy rules and the ...
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Episode 259: The Privacy and Surveillance Risks of AI Chatbot Reporting to Police

March 2, 2026 • 21 mins
Over the past ten days, Canada has witnessed one of the fastest-moving technology policy debates in recent memory. What began as reporting about a tragic act of violence – the shootings in Tumbler Ridge, BC -  quickly evolved into questions about AI safety, corporate responsibility, police reporting obligations, and now potential AI regulation. This week’s Law Bytes podcast is a bit different from the norm. Buildin...
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