AI, copyright, likeness and privacy law in Canada

AI law is changing quickly, and much of it is still being decided by courts, regulators and legislatures. This lesson gives creators a working map of the main legal questions: who owns AI-assisted content, whether training AI on other people's work is lawful, how voices and faces are protected, what privacy law requires, and how advertising and transparency rules apply. It describes the law at the time of writing (October 2026) in general terms.

Copyright in AI-assisted work

Canada's Copyright Act protects original works and is built around the idea of an author. Canadian courts define originality as the exercise of skill and judgment that is more than purely mechanical, a test set by the Supreme Court of Canada in CCH Canadian v. Law Society of Upper Canada (2004). The Act does not mention artificial intelligence, and no Canadian court had ruled on whether purely AI-generated output can be protected at the time of writing. Most commentators expect that a human author exercising skill and judgment is required, so content you shape substantially through your own choices is more likely to be protected than output produced by a single prompt.

A test case is under way. In 2021 the Canadian Intellectual Property Office registered an image called SURYAST, created with an AI style-transfer tool, listing the human creator and the AI tool as co-authors. CIPO registers copyright without examining whether a work qualifies, so registration is not a ruling. A public-interest clinic, CIPPIC, has asked the Federal Court to correct the register, and the court has allowed interveners such as Music Publishers Canada to take part. The decision, when it comes, will be an important signal on authorship and AI.

For creators, the practical lessons are the same in both countries. Keep a record of your human contributions: scripts you wrote, footage you shot, selection and sequencing decisions, and edits to AI material. Treat purely generated elements, such as an AI background or a fully generated music bed, as potentially unprotected, which means others might copy them freely. Do not assume a tool's terms giving you ownership of output create copyright the law does not recognize; terms can only assign whatever rights exist.

Training data and infringement

Whether training AI models on copyrighted material without permission is lawful has not been settled in Canada. There is no specific text-and-data-mining exception in the Copyright Act. Developers may argue fair dealing, which covers purposes such as research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting, but fair dealing has not been tested on large-scale AI training. In November 2024, a group of Canadian news publishers sued OpenAI in Ontario over the use of their content, and that case was ongoing at the time of writing. The federal government consulted on copyright and generative AI in 2023 and 2024 but had not amended the Act by October 2026.

For creators, the training debate cuts both ways. Your own content may have been used to train models, and you may want to use platform settings or opt-outs that limit future use where they exist. At the same time, the tools you use may have been trained on others' work. The bigger practical risk for you is output: if a generated image, song or passage closely copies an existing work, publishing it can infringe regardless of how the model was trained. Lesson 4's safeguards apply: avoid prompts aimed at copying protected works, check outputs and choose tools with clear commercial terms.

Outside North America, courts have also started ruling. In November 2025 the High Court of England and Wales largely rejected Getty Images' copyright claims against Stability AI, finding the trained model was not itself an infringing copy. Such foreign decisions are not binding in Canada or the United States but are watched closely.

Voice and likeness

Canada has no single statute on rights of personality, but several sources protect a person's name, image and voice. In Quebec, articles 3, 35 and 36 of the Civil Code of Québec and section 5 of the Quebec Charter of human rights and freedoms protect privacy and image; in Aubry v. Éditions Vice-Versa (1998) the Supreme Court of Canada held that publishing a person's image without consent can violate these rights. In the common law provinces, courts recognize a tort of appropriation of personality for unauthorized commercial use of a recognizable person. British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador have privacy statutes making unauthorized use of a person's name or likeness for advertising actionable. These rules apply to AI replicas: a synthetic version of a recognizable person's voice or face used commercially without consent is likely to be unlawful.

Whatever the jurisdiction, the creator's rule is simple: get informed, written consent before creating or publishing a synthetic version of anyone's voice or face, and never create sexual or degrading deepfakes of anyone. Satire and commentary about public figures can be protected expression, but realistic fakes that could be taken as genuine, or that suggest endorsement, are high-risk.

Privacy and biometric data

Canadian privacy law applies when you collect, use or disclose personal information in commercial activity. Federally, PIPEDA requires meaningful consent and limits use to purposes a reasonable person would consider appropriate. Alberta and British Columbia have their own private-sector laws, and Quebec's Law 25 (fully in force since September 2024) adds strict requirements: privacy impact assessments for certain projects, notice when decisions are made exclusively by automated processing, and advance notice to the Commission d'accès à l'information before creating a database of biometric characteristics, such as voiceprints or face geometry. A federal AI bill (the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act) died when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025. For creators, voice samples, face scans of guests and viewer data are personal information; collect only what you need, with consent, and check where AI tools store it.

Advertising, disclosure and AI claims

The Competition Act prohibits representations that are false or misleading in a material respect, judged by their general impression, and this applies to AI-generated content in advertising and endorsements. Penalties can be significant: for individuals, up to $750,000 for a first order and $1 million for later orders. Ad Standards' Influencer Marketing Disclosure Guidelines (October 2025) apply disclosure rules equally to AI-generated influencers and recommend disclosing when AI generates or significantly alters images showing a product's benefits or attributes.

Foreign audiences and the EU AI Act

Creators reach global audiences, and some foreign laws may apply to content aimed at their residents. The most important is the European Union's AI Act. Its transparency obligations in Article 50 took effect on 2 August 2026. Among other things, those who deploy AI to create deepfakes, meaning realistic image, audio or video content resembling real people, places or events that could falsely appear authentic, must disclose that the content is artificially generated or manipulated. For evidently artistic, creative, satirical or fictional works, disclosure can be lighter, such as a mention that does not spoil the work, but commercial content does not qualify for that relief just because it has a fictional setting. Fines can be large. Creators with significant EU audiences or EU sponsors should treat platform AI labels as a minimum and follow EU guidance for campaigns aimed there.

Staying current

This area changes monthly. Follow reliable sources such as government copyright and privacy offices, regulators' guidance, professional associations for creators and performers, and reputable law firm updates. Revisit your AI policies at least twice a year, and whenever you start a new kind of AI use, such as your first digital twin or first AI-dubbed sponsored campaign.

A legal checklist for AI projects

Before starting a project that uses AI in a significant way, run through a short checklist with your team, and with a lawyer for higher-risk work:

• Inputs: do we have the rights and consents for everything we upload, including guest recordings, music, footage and other people's writing?
• Tool terms: do the tool's terms allow commercial use, and what do they say about ownership, training on our uploads and indemnities?
• Outputs: could anything generated resemble an existing protected work, trademark or real person?
• Likeness: have all people whose faces or voices are reproduced given informed, written consent covering this use?
• Privacy: are we collecting personal or biometric information, and have we met consent, notice and security requirements?
• Advertising: does the content make claims, endorse products or show demonstrations that AI could make misleading?
• Audiences: are we targeting regions, such as the EU, with additional rules?
• Records: are we logging what was generated and our human contributions?

The checklist does not replace legal advice, but it helps you spot when you need it.

Remember that laws differ between provinces and states, and that content published online can reach people in many places at once. The most cautious approach is to follow the strictest rule likely to apply to your audience, especially for consent to use people's likenesses and for disclosure of synthetic content.