Professor to co-chair new federal expert advisory group on online safety

Professor Emily Laidlaw, who holds a Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity, has been appointed to the new expert advisory group on online safety, and will act as its co-chair.

This expert advisory group has been given a mandate to provide the Minister of Canadian Heritage with advice on how best to design the legislative and regulatory framework to address harmful content online, and how to best incorporate the feedback received during the national consultation the government held last year.

More specifically, the expert advisory group will participate in nine workshops on the components of a legislative and regulatory framework for online safety.

"Online abuse has a devastating impact on our communities," says Laidlaw. "Canada is behind many other jurisdictions in developing laws in this area, but this is an opportunity to get it right. There’s no easy solution. My goals are to ensure the protection of fundamental rights, to improve access to justice and to support the innovation economy. To achieve that will be a delicate balancing act."

In 2021, Laidlaw and third-year student Darryl Carmichael wrote a piece for ABlawg criticizing the government's initial proposal.

"The Government’s initial proposal did not achieve these goals, and I expect that our panel will have different views on the way forward, which will require that we go back to the foundations," adds Laidlaw.

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