By Claudiu Popa, for the KnowledgeFlow Cybersafety Foundation

Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner has floated a bold idea: a Children’s Privacy Code designed to rein in digital platforms and protect young users. It's a hopeful concept reminiscent of the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code but in a country where meaningful enforcement has the consistency of a disappearing Snapchat, there’s reason for both cautious optimism and grounded skepticism.

Below, we explore what could go wrong, and right, from three critical perspectives: the enforcers, the families, and the stewards of public education.

1. From the Perspective of Enforcers: The Watchdogs with No Teeth

The greatest existential threat to the Children’s Privacy Code is not the absence of good ideas it’s the bureaucratic anemia of enforcement.

Risks:

  • Limited Enforcement Power: The OPC’s current inability to levy meaningful penalties under PIPEDA makes any new Code look like a papier-mâché firewall. Without statutory backing like the proposed CPPA (Bill C-27), this Code risks being another well-intentioned suggestion that companies ignore with impunity.
  • Under-Resourced Oversight: Privacy regulators are often expected to police an entire digital economy with the budget of a middle school AV club. Enforcement that depends on reactive complaint mechanisms rather than proactive audits guarantees unequal protection. Privilege becomes privacy.
  • Jurisdictional Mismatch: Tech giants headquartered in California but serving kids in Calgary laugh in Canadian jurisdiction. Unless the Code has extraterritorial bite and international cooperation, it won’t touch the worst offenders.

Opportunities:

  • Symbolic and Legal Precedent: Even in its advisory form, the Code can serve as a benchmark for civil suits, class actions, and legislative advocacy. It creates a language of accountability where silence previously reigned.
  • Public Pressure and Civil Society: Enforcement doesn’t always mean fines. Naming and shaming violators (think: a “Privacy Naughty List”) could rally parents, educators, and policymakers alike.

 

2. From the Perspective of Families and Children: Caught in the Data Dragnet

For families, especially those with young children navigating online education, games, and social media, the risks aren’t theoretical, they’re home invasions by telemetry.

Risks:

  • False Sense of Security: A Code that appears protective without real enforcement could lull families into trusting platforms that continue to vacuum up children's data for behavioral profiling, algorithmic manipulation, and future debt marketing.
  • Opaque Consent Mechanisms: Parents already struggle to understand privacy policies written like end-of-level bosses in a lawyer RPG. Adding age-verification popups and cookie banners without clear controls only increases “consent fatigue” and undermines meaningful choice.
  • Digital Discrimination: Children from marginalized communities may face disproportionate impacts. AI-fueled risk scores, surveillance-based discipline tools, and location tracking in edtech deepen inequalities instead of narrowing them.
  • Emotional and Developmental Harms: Algorithmic recommendation engines are addictive by design. The monetization of attention turns children into commodities before they’ve developed the critical thinking skills to recognize coercion.

Opportunities:

  • Empowered Parenting Tools: If implemented correctly, the Code could demand dashboards, privacy settings, and tools that genuinely empower families to supervise without surveilling.
  • Baseline Expectations: Much like nutrition labels, the Code could set default protections and transparency that guide parental decisions, even among tech-savvy teens.

 

3. From the Perspective of Public Education Administrators: Between Compliance and Complicity

Canadian school boards are increasingly reliant on cloud services, mobile apps, and analytics dashboards. But they are neither developers nor watchdogs. They are often unwitting conduits of digital exploitation.

Risks:

  • Vendor Non-Compliance: Without strong procurement rules tied to the Code, school boards will continue to adopt platforms that are educational in name only. Edtech companies rarely provide full data transparency or deletion rights, and schools often don’t ask.
  • IT Capacity Deficits: Privacy compliance can’t be delegated to overburdened IT staff with no training or budget for data protection. Administrators need technical standards, audit templates, and policy frameworks not just vague “guidance.”
  • Conflicted Interests: When free services are monetized through student data, public education becomes an adtech Trojan horse. The conflict between pedagogical goals and commercial incentives is profound, and no school should be left to navigate it alone.

Opportunities:

  • Procurement with Purpose: The Code could act as a litmus test for responsible edtech, forcing vendors to provide plain-language disclosures and data protection assurances.
  • Professional Development: The initiative could include funding and curricula for privacy and digital literacy training, not only for students but for educators and administrators.

What Must Canada Do to Get This Right?

This is not just a consultation, it’s a stress test for our national will. To avoid building another Potemkin privacy framework, Canada must:

  • Legislate Real Consequences: The Code must be tethered to enforceable legislation with meaningful penalties. Without CPPA, it’s a speech without a mic.
  • Centralize Oversight and Guidance: Schools and parents should not be left to interpret compliance in a vacuum. A national privacy clearinghouse for youth-focused tech is overdue.
  • Mandate Privacy by Design: Every product marketed to children must be sandboxed, privacy-preserving by default, with opt-in only mechanisms for data sharing.
  • Fund Independent Audits: Voluntary compliance should be subject to verification. If a company says it deletes children’s data, they should prove it under penalty of law.

Conclusion: Don’t Let the Code Become a Cover

The dream of a Children’s Privacy Code is righteous. But without sharp tools, rigorous standards, and broad collaboration, it risks becoming just another marketing veneer for data-hungry platforms. Let’s not mistake “consultation” for completion. Canada has the opportunity to lead, not by following others, but by setting a higher bar.

If we truly believe in protecting children online, we must do more than whisper guidelines into the algorithm’s ear. We must out-code, out-legislate, and outlast it.