Quebec

Quebec

Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec (CAI)

The CAI has a dual mandate covering both access to information and the protection of personal information, across both the public and private sectors — a broader combined remit than most other provinces' regulators. Per its own description, the Commission "ensures the application and promotion of laws protecting the right to information and the right to privacy." It processes citizen appeals when public bodies deny access or correction requests, monitors compliance with privacy law in both public and private sectors through investigations, complaints, and mediation, and functions as a specialized administrative tribunal deciding access and privacy disputes.

Laws and regulations administered:

Other provincial legislation of note

  • Act to establish a legal framework for information technology — contains Quebec's core biometrics rules (sections 44–45): organizations must disclose biometric-characteristic databases to the CAI in advance, obtain express consent, use biometric data only to the minimum extent necessary, destroy it once its purpose is fulfilled, and give 60 days' notice before creating a biometric database.
  • Loi concernant l'identité numérique nationale et modifiant d'autres dispositions (Bill 82), assented October 22, 2025 (SQ 2025, c. 26) — establishes Quebec's voluntary national digital-identity system, with privacy safeguards including minimal disclosure, user-approved use, and mandatory consultation before adding any biometric feature.

This law was contested while before the National Assembly. The government's case, articulated by Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital Technology Gilles Bélanger, is that the digital identity gives citizens a way to prove who they are online while disclosing only what's strictly necessary for a given transaction, reduces identity-theft and fraud risk, keeps use entirely voluntary, and consolidates access to government services behind a single, user-controlled credential — which he called "a major step in [the province's] digital transformation." The Ligue des droits et libertés, a civil-liberties advocacy group, opposed the bill in a formal submission to the National Assembly and public statements, arguing citizens were largely left out of the policy conversation before the bill's introduction ("la population est tenue à l'écart" — the public was kept on the sidelines) and raising broader concerns common to national digital-ID schemes: the risk of function creep beyond the stated voluntary, minimal-disclosure design, and the difficulty of guaranteeing a credential stays genuinely optional once it becomes the default way to access government services.

  • Loi visant à favoriser la sécurité et le sentiment de sécurité de la population (Bill 13), sanctioned April 2, 2026 (2026, c. 7) — creates a public registry of high-risk sex offenders, bans wearing insignia of ministerially designated "criminal" groups, restricts protests (banning possession of objects "capable of" causing harm or intimidation, prohibiting demonstrations within 50 metres of an elected official's residence), and gives police warrantless search powers where they have reasonable grounds to believe a protester carries a prohibited item.

This law was heavily contested. Minister of Public Security Ian Lafrenière framed it as targeting criminal groups, sex offenders, and domestic-violence risk to address rising public concern about safety. The Ligue des droits et libertés called the protest provisions "une atteinte très claire à la liberté d'expression" (a very clear infringement on freedom of expression), warning the vague language could sweep in ordinary objects; the CCLA, jointly with the LDL and 220 co-signatory organizations, argued the residence buffer zone undermines legitimate protest; Quebec's human rights commission (CDPDJ) filed a submission raising the same concern; and the First Nations and Inuit Police Directors Association's Dwaine Zacharie called the expanded search powers "flous et très larges" (vague and very broad), saying they resemble policing "au sud de la frontière" (south of the border). Criminologist Angie Riendeau also testified that public sex-offender registries have never been shown to reduce recidivism. Committee consultations were compressed to two days, with only 12 groups — six of them police associations — heard.

Pending and proposed legislation

  • Quebec's Secrétariat du Conseil du trésor has reportedly issued an AI governance directive for public bodies, with a compliance deadline reported as June 5, 2026, per secondary legal-industry reporting. This is administrative direction for the public sector rather than a statute, and its primary text could not be located on a gouv.qc.ca domain as of this page's last update. No standalone Quebec AI statute has been identified as before the National Assembly.