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OTTAWA — Canada’s chief electoral officer wants to ban any misrepresentation by candidates and other key players in the electoral process by manipulating their voice or image without consent.

The proposed amendment to the Canada Elections Act is one of several measures proposed by Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault to combat the use of deepfakes and other artificially created content to mislead voters.

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In an interview, Perrault said he “hopes to convince” MPs to expand an electoral reform bill, currently in committee in the House of Commons, to include new elements.

Brazen interference tactics such as deepfakes have become part of the public debate in the United States, but they remain “a bit of a shock to the system” in Canada, he said.

“We need to recognize that all kinds of issues come up in an election and be willing to talk about them. »

Perrault outlines these legislative proposals in a report on protecting against threats to the electoral process that was recently submitted to Parliament and a federal inquiry into foreign interference.

Synthetic images, video and audio are increasingly easy to generate through applications driven by artificial intelligence, allowing people to spread false information and sow confusion.

Such deepfake deception can involve replacing a person’s face in a video with that of another person and manipulating the person’s voice.

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“AI images of people doing things they have never done, audio recordings of these people saying things they have never said, or videos created can threaten democracy and make it difficult for a voter to know what is real and what is a deepfake,” Perrault’s report said.

“While the risks arising from the rapid evolution and availability of AI are not limited to foreign interference, it is clear that foreign state actors could harness the power of the technology to create deepfakes in order to influence or undermine the electoral process. »

Currently, an article of the electoral law relating to identity theft prohibits falsely presenting oneself as a chief electoral officer, electoral officer, candidate or representative of a party or constituency association with the intention of misleading, the report notes.

However, the report adds, the law does not cover a scenario in which someone manipulates the voice or image of a party leader, or one of the other designated key actors, to create a deepfake.

The bill currently before Parliament proposes to amend the provision on identity theft and a related provision on misleading publications by clarifying that the prohibitions apply regardless of the medium, manner or place in which the false statement is made.

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But these minor adjustments “in no way address the threat of deepfakes,” the report said.

Perrault recommends expanding the identity theft provision to cover false statements using voice or image manipulation. It also recommends that the relevant provisions apply outside an electoral period.

Perrault admits it’s healthy for people to express concerns about the electoral process or its integrity, even if the basis for their concerns turns out to be false. But he has been pushing for some time to ban false statements intended to disrupt the conduct of an election or undermine its legitimacy.

The current bill would add a provision to protect against the dissemination of inaccurate information, but the amendment does not go so far as to prohibit statements intended to undermine the legitimacy of the election, the report said.

“Given that this is precisely the goal pursued by some foreign state actors and is perhaps the most damaging form of foreign interference for our democracy, it must be addressed. »

Perrault suggests amending electoral law to prohibit false information knowingly disseminated with the aim of undermining confidence in an election and its results.

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The Chief Electoral Officer’s report also calls for changes that go beyond the scope of the current bill and should therefore be taken into account in a new law.

These include proposed amendments to the law aimed at increasing the transparency of election communications and strengthening the integrity of political appointments and leadership contests.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published November 16, 2024.

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