On December 18, 2024, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued a decision in Clearview AI Inc. v. Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, 2024 BCSC 2311. At its core, the case involved a challenge by a U.S.-based artificial intelligence (AI) company against a binding order from British Columbia’s privacy regulator. The company, Clearview AI, had amassed a large facial recognition database by scraping billions of publicly accessible images from the internet, many of which depicted individuals located in British Columbia, without obtaining their consent.

The decision is significant not only for its factual context, but for what . . . [more]

The market for legal AI is teaming with options. Many of them are compelling. All of them are expensive.

What the companies offering these tools hope that you don’t notice is that free (or almost free) tools, like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are getting so good at basic legal research tasks that many lawyers looking to boost their productivity don’t need to look any further.

We highlight three ways to use these free tools to make research more effective — but we note that becoming a subscriber to one of them, for roughly $30 a month, will tend . . . [more]

I was recently speaking with someone about the Internet’s “Eternal September”, which is the concept that starting in 1993/1994 so many new users started using the internet that it could never settle into the online equivalent of November on campus, when people have figured things out where their classes are and where to get the sandwiches they like for lunch. From the perspective of 30+ years later, with no indication that the phenomenon has slowed, wearing a t-shirt saying that the internet was full in 1993 seems to lack, if not imagination, then at least prescience. However, the cultural . . . [more]

An email from a faculty member at the University of Toronto on the topic of AI made the rounds at law schools across Canada recently. It’s about using AI on final exams.

It points out that if a student has an app already open when they launch Examplify – the software most schools use to administer exams – they will have access to that app while writing the exam. This could be a browser with Lexis+AI or the app version of ChatGPT, which would still be online during the exam.

To avoid this, the company that makes Examplify advises running . . . [more]

One of the earliest projects that was launched at the University of Victoria’s AI Risk and Regulation Lab was a mapping initiative that tracked both how artificial intelligence (AI) is regulated and litigated. To date, litigation tracking has primarily been focused on cases arising from the United States and internationally as until November 2024, there was virtually no domestic litigation to discuss. That changed recently when two lawsuits were filed in the month of November, signaling that Canada is now joining an international surge of AI-related legal disputes. In this column I will briefly review the two recently launched cases . . . [more]

A common message we hear today is that AI will soon bring about sweeping changes to the practice of law, making us so much more efficient that we’ll have plenty of time for other things.

I’ve kept my finger on the pulse of AI since ChatGPT appeared in 2022. I’m a heavy user of AI as a law professor and part-time criminal lawyer. I’m constantly experimenting with it and dazzled by its capabilities—you won’t find a bigger fan of AI.

But if there’s one thing that’s clear, it’s that AI will not transform the practice of law. Far from it. . . . [more]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming nearly every sector of society, and the legal field is no exception. While AI is rapidly reshaping legal practice, legal education risks falling behind.

Surveys of university graduates indicate that they feel unprepared for the workforce due to a lack of AI integration into their education. Legal regulators like the Law Society of Ontario, emphasize that lawyers must understand AI’s risks and benefits to meet professional responsibility standards. The gap between what is taught in the classroom and what is required in practice is widening by the day.

Fortunately, there are practical and innovative strategies . . . [more]

The Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) has released its “Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Canadian Courts” (CJC Guidelines), which represent a significant step towards integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into the Canadian justice system. This article evaluates the CJC Guidelines, analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and potential implications. Given my experience drafting similar guidelines, I offer constructive recommendations for improvement, focusing on practicality, comprehensiveness, and responsiveness to the unique challenges of AI adoption in Canadian courts.

Practicality and Usefulness of the CJC Guidelines

The CJC Guidelines are undoubtedly useful in laying a conceptual groundwork for AI adoption in . . . [more]

Introduction

In June of 2022, the Government of Canada tabled Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act,[1] making it one of the earlier countries in the world to commence work on a national level Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulatory framework. Unfortunately, due to a complex array of factors—including criticisms of its scope, legislative delays and political instability—the bill now faces a significant risk of failure.

Bill C-27 is an omnibus bill that contains three pieces of legislation including the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPA) and the Artificial Intelligence Data Act . . . [more]

In 2019, The Strand bookstore in New York and the building it inhabits were granted heritage status by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, and they threatened to sue the city in response (the story was widely reported, here is a story from the Guardian). The owner’s concern was that the administrative requirements associated with the designation would be onerous and that the bookstore might not be viable with them. They said this is especially relevant given the competition from online retailers like Amazon.

The Strand is still in business, but the reason this matters here is recognizing that legal . . . [more]

In part 1 of this article, we explored two different areas of the regulation of artificial Intelligence (AI) in Canada. These included existing laws of general application that apply to AI and are in force currently, as well proposed legislation that would regulate the commercial use of AI in Canada directly, known as the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA). In part 2 of this article, I will introduce a number of international developments in the regulation of AI that have an impact on Canada and introduce the primary international norms that are developing in this area. The article . . . [more]

Throughout my career, I have been attracted to and fortunate enough to work on various initiatives that push the envelope in particularly challenging and fast-moving areas. This work can sometimes induce anxiety due to its unpredictable nature and pace, but it is never boring and it is often highly rewarding. That being said, nothing I have done in the past has come close to the pace of change and potential for impact than working in the management of risk for artificial intelligence (AI) implementation.

The unique combination of the speed of advancement of AI technology combined with the slow pace . . . [more]