Solomon considering age restrictions for chatbots in privacy bill

By: Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press Posted:

Advertisement

Advertise with us

MONTREAL - Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says his upcoming privacy bill could include age restrictions for chatbots to protect children.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2025 (296 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MONTREAL – Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says his upcoming privacy bill could include age restrictions for chatbots to protect children.

He says he is also considering including in the legislation the right to delete deepfakes.

Solomon maintains he hasn’t changed his mind about rejecting a wide-ranging regulatory approach to AI.

Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon gives remarks during the All In AI conference in Montreal on Thursday, Sept., 25, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon gives remarks during the All In AI conference in Montreal on Thursday, Sept., 25, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

But he says he is open to taking action on specific urgent and current issues.

Solomon says he is also open to feedback from both Canadians and a group of experts he has asked to work on updating Canada’s AI strategy.

He says 6,500 Canadians have weighed in on the federal government’s consultation.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2025.

Related Articles

Amazon cuts 14,000 corporate jobs as spending on artificial intelligence accelerates
FILE - This Sept. 6, 2012, file photo, shows the Amazon logo. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

Advertisement Advertise With Us

Report Error Submit a Tip

Advertisement

Learn more about Winnipeg Free Press Advertising solutions

More Stories

SUPPLIED Selkirk Mayor Larry Johannson

Development turning long-vacant gas station in Selkirk into commercial hub

By Tiago Resko 2 minute read Preview

Development turning long-vacant gas station in Selkirk into commercial hub

By Tiago Resko 2 minute read Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026

A plot of land that has sat vacant in Selkirk for 30 years is being redeveloped to host new businesses in the heart of the city.

The former gas station site on Main Street — between Rosser and Pacific avenues — will be turned into a commercial hub that will be home to six local businesses, and will be a big stepping stone for economic growth in Selkirk, Mayor Larry Johannson said Thursday.

“For decades this site has been a reminder of what once was. Today, it represents what is possible when investors see the potential of our community and choose to be a part of its future,” he said in a news release announcing the project and Thursday’s groundbreaking.

“This development reflects confidence in Selkirk, our economy and the direction we are heading.”

Read
Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026

Listen up: Real Love Summer Fest Reunion, Funky Miracles return for downtown residency

3 minute read Yesterday at 6:00 AM CDT

Don’t be a big loser — check out Real Love Summer Fest ReunionBig Loser takes the stage at 8:20 p.m. tonight as part of the Real Love Summer Fest Reunion, a one-day event put on by the indie promotion company, which ran the festival in the Interlake area for a decade until last summer’s final edition near Teulon.

Bookers Gil Carroll and Adam Soloway have programmed a full day of music at Blue Note Park (220 Main St.), the outdoor venue adjacent to Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club.

First up at 4 p.m. is folk-rock songwriter tofusmell, followed at 5 p.m. with a rare performance by indie-songwriting darlings Animal Teeth, a group with several summer fest bills under its belt. Up-and-coming pop-rockers Synthetic Friend take the stage at 6, followed at 7 by the fun electronic dance pop of French Class.

After playing with his full band at last month’s Winnipeg Folk Festival, Amos the Kid will perform a solo set at 8 p.m. Sans band, the performer shows off his affable roots as a Gord Downie acolyte with catchy earworms to match.

Harmony at the controls of one of two cranes she operates at Western Scrap Metals. (Ruth Bonneville / Free Press)

Trailblazing Western Scrap Metals heavy-equipment operator relishes role at massive crane’s control

David Sanderson 7 minute read Preview

Trailblazing Western Scrap Metals heavy-equipment operator relishes role at massive crane’s control

David Sanderson 7 minute read Friday, Aug. 14, 2026

Less than five per cent of heavy-equipment operators in the country are women but that number is trending upward, according to a study conducted by trade magazine Crane & Hoist Canada.

It was reported that in Ontario roughly eight per cent of jobs in the transport and heavy-equipment field are currently held by women. Furthermore, in 2024 almost 20 per cent of graduates at an Edmonton-based heavy-equipment operator training school were female, the article stated.

That brings us to Harmony Guspodarchuk, the first female crane operator in the 70-year history of Western Scrap Metals, a family-owned business at 18 Sutherland Ave.

Three years ago, Guspodarchuk literally stepped into the driver’s seat of a 27,500-kilogram, Liebherr C 924 Heavy Lift Litronic crane. The 29-year-old hasn’t looked back much since.

Read
Friday, Aug. 14, 2026

News briefs for Sunday, August 16, 2026

1 minute read Updated: 12:40 PM CDT

A collection of breaking news briefs filed on Sunday, August 16, 2026

Cross-border abduction under investigation

12:36 PM

A cross-border kidnapping from Winnipeg to Minnesota is under investigation, according to North Dakota state patrol.

SUPPLIED Big Loser’s new record is a strong addition to the canon of Interlake indie music.

Big Loser’s latest a winning mix of country, folk

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Preview

Big Loser’s latest a winning mix of country, folk

Ben Waldman 5 minute read Yesterday at 6:00 AM CDT

The yellow trucker hat for sale on Facebook Marketplace said “Selkirk Lumber,” so Adam Wayne Brown knew he had to hammer home a deal.

Like the other millennial members of Winnipeg folk-country band Big Loser, the bassist has an affinity for the nostalgic, taking every opportunity — through music, through lyrics and through wardrobe — to recall the unique circumstances of growing up in a changing Interlake.

“I remember the matte yellow trucks driving around — the lumber trucks — and so I’ve had this strange memory of something disappearing from my youth and then persisting,” says Brown, who, like the band’s frontman Alex Paradoski, moved to Winnipeg more than a decade ago.

“I have a photo of the Lockport Bridge in my dining room,” chimes in Paradoski, whose first job as a teenager was bunning wieners and chopping fries at Skinner’s, a drive-in mainstay since 1929 along Highway 44.

Read
Yesterday at 6:00 AM CDT
The shuttered Arlington Street Bridge in 2024. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files)

Corroded Arlington overpass yields way for new hope of spanning urban chasm

Melissa Martin 6 minute read Preview

Corroded Arlington overpass yields way for new hope of spanning urban chasm

Melissa Martin 6 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

It’s an interesting quirk of timing, perhaps, that the end of two of Winnipeg’s most unlovely features are coming into view in the same few weeks. The rail lines that split the city in half, and the bridge that was built to tie it back together. The original problem, and the solution.

And in the confluence of those two ends, we have an opportunity to dream of what a better Winnipeg can be.

At a news conference on Wednesday, former federal transport minister Lloyd Axworthy laid out a vision for a rail line bypass that would remove more than 120 railway crossings from Winnipeg, route them through Crown and Manitoba Hydro corridor land south of the city, and reclaim 250 acres in the urban core for greenspace and development.

The next step is to focus on how to make it happen. Nothing of this scope comes easy. This new bypass plan emerged from a two-year feasibility study that Premier Wab Kinew had tasked Axworthy with back in 2024. Now, Axworthy will helm a new 90-day feasibility study zooming in on that route specifically.

Read
Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT