Pornhub broke federal privacy law, investigation finds | Canada Tonight

An investigation by Canada’s privacy commissioner into the operator of PornHub and other pornographic sites has found it broke the federal Privacy Law in his finding last week the commissioner said it enabled intimate images to be shared on its websites without direct knowledge or consent Philipe defrain investigated Alo which

Is owned by ethical Capital Partners following a complaint from women her ex-boyfriend from a woman that is her ex-boyfriend uploaded an intimate video and other images of her without her permission now he says that the Privacy commissioner says that inadequate privacy protection measures on these sites have led to devastating

Consequences for the complainant and other victims ethical Capital Partners issued a statement to CBC we have instituted some of the most comprehensive safeguards in the user uploaded environment in order to prevent and eliminate illegal material from our sites this includes mandatory uploader verification Banning downloads of content expanding moderation work work

Force and processes partnering with nonprofit organizations around the world these are significant steps in identifying removing and Reporting harmful and illegal content solman fredman is Vice President of compliance at ethical Capital Partners I spoke to him last Thursday about the investigation’s findings it’s important to understand that the subject matter of this

Complaint actually originated in 2015 so almost a decade ago uh since that time mindgeek and now Alo has taken industry-leading steps and we have have really um a worldclass trust and safety program and I want to be very clear about that that includes verifying the identity of every uploader requiring

Verification of all who appear in content and also moderating through both automated processes uh and a full team of human moderators every piece of content uh which appears on the platform so it’s important to remember that trust and safety evolves we learn from past challenges the internet and content

Sharing platforms have come a long way since 2015 and we’re very proud to be leading the charge in keeping our platform safe and secure the commissioner also said that uh he had made several recommendations aimed at bringing Alo into compliance with Canada’s Federal private sector uh

Privacy Law but that the company had not committed to implementing any of them uh so why is that and does the company now commit to these recommendations so I I can say this on behalf of the ownership group uh our view is that we are in substantial compliance with the recommendations uh

We are looking very closely at the report our our commitment is to ensure that the content on the platform is safe it’s consensual it’s legal uh we do that by verifying the identification of every single uploader and all those who appear in content and I and I I look across the

Internet at content sharing Platforms in both the adult and the mainstream space what we’re doing is unprecedented there is no other free content sharing platform that requires all uploaders to submit not only their own identification documents but then we also require confirmation of the identity of all

Those who appear here in our content so our view is we are in substantial compliance it has been a long time uh since this matter was initiated and the trust and safety platform as it exists today as it exists today not at the time that these complaints origin originated

Uh is really second to none so have you been in touch with the Privacy commissioner’s office because uh obviously from the reporting it says that that has not been the case so obviously there have been you know this is a long process it’s taken it’s taken

A long time back and forth uh we’re reviewing the findings released today uh very closely but uh the steps that we have towards identifying removing and Reporting harmful and illegal content as well as verifying the identity and moderating content and our view bring us into substantial compliance and we look

Forward uh to further discussions in the future do you think that there are any gaps when it comes to compliance when it comes to these recommendations or have you reviewed all of them and you feel like you are in compliance with all of the recommendations as of right now like

I said our view is that we’re in substantial compliance you’re talking about apply platform that requires government ID that requires a liveness check done through automated and human means and a matching of that ID to the uploader just in order to get upload privileges uh once upload privileges are

Are granted through that verification process no content goes live on our platform until it is reviewed both by automated tools uh looking for for Content that’s violative of our terms of service as well as full human moderation there’s simply no other platform that does that I’m very proud to stand behind

The trust and safy that we have at a I I know that you said that this complaint really originated in 2015 and you’re developing practices to outline the concerns here uh but what do you say to those who had their images shared without their consent on your

Platform Al so there’s no question like in any other corner of the internet you know criminals will always seek to exploit content sharing platforms for their for their own gain uh we see this whether it’s on Facebook on Twitter on Reddit uh the question is do you have

Trust and safety practices policies and procedures that keep that platform safe that both detect deter and investigate wrongdoers uh you know this has been a learning experience for all of the internet since the origination of the content sharing era we’ve been on the Leading Edge of it particularly of

Course in in the adult space uh and our trust and safety program is is really Second To None all right Mr fredman appreciate your time my pleasure that’s Solomon fredman a partner and vice president of compliance at ethical Capital Partners which owns pornhub’s parent company

An investigation by Canada’s privacy commissioner has found that the company behind Pornhub and other pornographic sites broke the law by enabling intimate images to be shared on its websites without direct knowledge or consent.

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