Commons Committee Approves Bill C-16 Image Amendments

OTTAWA A House of Commons justice committee has approved amendments to Bill C-16, expanding the definition of intimate images to include those depicting individuals as nearly nude, addressing gaps in the original proposal that targeted only fully nude or explicitly sexual content.

The changes, proposed by Conservative MP Andrew Lawton and adopted last week during the committee's clause-by-clause review, respond to expert testimony that the initial version would exclude many nonconsensual images generated earlier this year by Elon Musk's Grok chatbot on the X platform. Those images included edits to photos of women showing them in see-through bikinis, which did not expose sexual organs or depict explicit activity.

Lawton told the committee the amendment draws from witness accounts and personal experiences relayed to him. "We are seeing with the advancement of technology these very sophisticated and in some cases quite traumatizing assaults taking place," he said. "It simply just ensures that a small technicality is not excluding something that I think this law intends to capture."

Liberal MP Patricia Lattanzio, parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister Sean Fraser, supported the...