Internet Safety and Accountability - We need to stop the carnage of lies and adulterated children.

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The goal of internet safety should be to, firstly, protect people from harm, and secondly, and as importantly, avoid encroachment on free speech. Any adjudication in this regard must occur under the auspices of fundamental law and should never fall out of the full transparency of an open court.

What is happening now is a frustrating calamity of futile attempts by large actors in the business to offer protection. It is clearly failing on all fronts. The censorship I’ve encountered on various platforms has been arbitrary, often executed anonymously or ambiguously and in error or in a manner that prevents the free flow of ideas. Most disturbing, a picture of Micky Mouse when clicked upon can lead a child to grotesquely violent and graphic sexual material – an event that once it occurs, adulterates that child for life. While adults have the right to view adult material, there is a clear imperative to protect the innocence of children.

Whereas the present regulation and operation of the internet is permitting the transmission of information that harms the nation's narrative, exposes children to damaging materials, facilitates the anonymous abuse of people, allows foreign actors to effect discord and whereas anonymity is the facilitating factor in isolating perpetrators of harm from coming under the weight of the law, measures must be taken to have people’s actions tied to their identity. To this end, the government should enact legislation that makes it a statutory requirement that every person using social media in Canada be provisioned with an Internet Identity Number and that every platform operating in Canada is required to provide for the use of an Internet Identity Number for an account to function.

In the way that effectively every Canadian has a Social Insurance Number, every Canadian should have an Internet Identity Number. This proposition would also have as a requirement that anyone using any platform in Canada on the internet would require a number as well – so this would include foreign actors. The process would be to apply via the Internet and provide proof of identity and how a given actor could be located with contact information. This would be achieved in the same way one proves their identity through services like Stripe and other online payment and collection systems. The number and the identity data would be held in a Government of Canada database.

The only requirement of the service providers would be one more mandatory field on the account creation form. If a person has multiple Facebook accounts, for example, they would simply put that number on each account. This offers no operational impediment relative to what happens now. Further, and perhaps most importantly, there would be a date of birth attached to the number, so if Porn Hub allows a minor to access their materials, there is a readily clear means to prove wrongdoing.

If an account operator engages in slanderous behaviour or is peddling profane materials, for example, and a complaint or action is required, there is a trail to the culprit. To garner access to the identity of the account holder, one would make an application for an access order via a lower-level court and on the strength of that court order, the government would release the contact information so action can be taken.

It may be the case that as Canada’s database grows to include a large swath of the world’s population, and then other countries would join the effort. It may evolve in much the same way registering an internet site has. We can demand appropriate regulation in Canada - we may end up effecting appropriate regulation the world over.