Submission to The Standing Committee on Industry and Technology on Bill C-27, An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

Abstract

While AI has been touted by industry as an innovative tool that will yield benefits for the public, examining the impact of AI from a substantive equality perspective reveals profound harms. As a leading national organization with a mandate to advance substantive gender equality, LEAF urges the government to centre substantive equality and human rights as the guiding principles when regulating the growing use of AI. With this goal in mind, LEAF submits that the scope of AIDA must - at least - be substantially expanded in order to enable regulations that can protect against all present and emerging harms from AI.

Overview of Recommendations:

1. Government institutions must be included in the scope of AIDA (remove s. 3)

2. The statutory definitions of “harm” and “biased output” must be expanded (amend s. 5)

3. Harm mitigation measures must not be restricted to “high-impact” systems (remove s. 7 and remove “high-impact” from ss. 8, 9, 11, 12; amend s. 36(b) so that different obligations for different types of systems can be developed in regulations)

4. “Persons responsible” for AI-systems must explicitly include those involved in system training and testing (amend s. 5)

5. “Persons responsible” should be required to perform an equity and privacy audit to evaluate the possibility and likelihood of harm and biased outputs in advance of using, selling, or making available an AI-system. This audit must also be published and made available to the public (amend ss. 8 and 11; amend s. 36 to allow the Governor in Council to outline the requirements for an equity and privacy audit).

6. Substantive equality and public consultation must inform the development of regulations (amend preamble and s. 35(1)).

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, AI Governance, Artificial Intelligence Data Act, Substantive Equality, AI ethics