Privacy watchdog probes Pornhub

Alleged non-consensual content on site

OTTAWA • A federal watchdog says he is investigating Pornhub over potential privacy breaches related to exploitive content posted online, as concerns around non-consensual use of images in a digital world continue to mount.

At a parliamentary committee Monday, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien said his office is looking into the pornography site and its Montreal-based parent company, Mindgeek, following testimony from women who say Pornhub brushed off their pleas to have videos taken down.

More than 100 victims of exploitive content and scores of lawmakers have also called for a full criminal investigation into Mindgeek, alleging it regularly shared child pornography and sexual-assault videos as well as content shot or posted without the consent of subjects.

Mindgeek has denied all accusations of wrongdoing, saying it is a global leader in preventing distribution of exploitive videos and images and has zero tolerance for non-consensual content or child sexual-abuse material.

“Mindgeek is fully co-operating with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. As this is an ongoing investigation, we are unable to comment further,” the company said in an email.

Therrien, responding to questions from NDP MP Charlie Angus, said consent is required to disclose personal information under federal law.

“There’s a further rule which provides that even if consent is provided, a company cannot collect, use and disclose information if a reasonable person would find that inappropriate,” Therrien told the House of Commons ethics committee.

The commissioner declined to reveal more about the ongoing probe.

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told committee members last month that the call from more than 70 lawmakers for a criminal probe is under review, adding the police agency does not comment on whether an incident is under investigation.

Mindgeek draws 170 million visitors a day, including four million Canadians, and generates $460 million in annual revenue, according to the firm. It frequently ranks among the dozen most-visited sites in the world, ahead of Netflix and Zoom.

It isn’t the only company to stir up privacy concerns of late, with U.S. firm Clearview AI drawing condemnation from Therrien and three provincial counterparts in a February report.

The paper found that the New York-based company’s scraping of billions of images of people from across the internet using facial recognition technology amounted to a clear violation of Canadians’ privacy rights.

On Monday, Therrien said new legislation Bill C-11 needs to go further to “reduce the risks of facial recognition technology.”