Federal bill criminalizing sexual deepfakes wouldn’t cover X images: expert

By Canadian Press on January 13, 2026.

OTTAWA — A law professor is warning that the Liberal government’s legislation to criminalize sexual deepfakes would not cover most of the images that have proliferated on X in recent weeks.

Suzie Dunn, an assistant professor of law at Dalhousie University, says the bill wouldn’t necessarily apply to the wave of images created by Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot and shared on X.

Bill C-16 would criminalize the non-consensual sharing of images which show the subject nude, exposing their sexual organs or engaged in explicit sexual activity.

Images created by Grok — such as edits to photos of women to depict them wearing see-through bikinis — may not meet that standard.

AI Minister Evan Solomon recently pointed to Bill C-16 in a post on X that addressed the controversy over the images, which have triggered a global backlash.

Experts say that bill won’t go far enough and additional regulatory measures are needed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 13, 2023.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press