Bill C-16 — Protecting Victims Act

Bill C-16, the Protecting Victims Act, is an omnibus criminal-law bill that amends the Criminal Code and related Acts on child protection, gender-based violence, and sentencing. It was introduced on 9 December 2025 by Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice, and received royal assent on 18 June 2026 as Statutes of Canada 2026, c. 19.

It is tracked here for its AI-relevant provisions on non-consensual intimate images. During its study at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (JUST), the bill's intimate-image provisions were strengthened to address AI-generated content: the definition of an "intimate image" was amended to refer explicitly to images created or altered using artificial intelligence software, and the offence was broadened from "nude" to "nearly nude" depictions — a response to AI tools that generate sexualized images of identifiable people. The amendments also add a 48-hour platform takedown expectation for flagged material and increase maximum penalties where the image depicts sexual assault.

The Act's other measures — including making femicide first-degree murder and restoring certain mandatory minimum sentences — fall outside this tracker's AI-governance scope and are summarized only in passing.