Grants and Contributions

Researchers will map gaming data practices to principles under PIPEDA including meaningful consent, safeguards, transparency, accountability and data minimizations. They will then measure youth understanding of commercial data practices in gaming environments. Finally, they will translate the privacy principles into structured, bilingual classroom learning delivered nationally through the Digital Moment platform, reaching approximately 15,000 unique students and up to 500 educators nationally. Researchers will analyze anonymized aggregate participation data to identify patterns, trends and disparities in privacy literacy across age groups and regions.

The goal of this project is to support players, educators, and policymakers to respond effectively to the privacy challenges posed by AI-generated NPCs. Researchers will: (1) review the ‘state of play’ with respect to AI-generated NPCs, focusing on gaming industry and player perspectives on the associated applications, goals, risks, and benefits; (2) summarize the academic literature that examines how NPCs might be designed or might behave in order to influence player behaviour, and the corresponding privacy implications; and, (3) critically assess the efficacy of educational and regulatory responses to minimize the privacy impact of interacting with AI-generated NPCs.

This project proposes conducting extensive research and analysis and proposing policy recommendations that strengthen privacy protections against algorithmic pricing in online games.

This project seeks to unpack the privacy implications of “rootkit-style” surveillance in “anti-cheat” software by examining: (1) the technical reality of kernel-level access versus the vague disclosures found in consumer consent mechanisms and deeper within their privacy stacks, (2) the coercive nature of “consent” when such invasive tools are a mandatory condition of play, and (3) the security vulnerabilities introduced by granting third-party gaming vendors deep system access.

Artificial intelligence is generating urgent and serious privacy harms for Canadians. Generative AI platforms enable the mass production of non-consensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated child sexual abuse material. Online gaming platforms — used by more than half of Canadians, including millions of children — collect vast quantities of personal and behavioural data with limited transparency or meaningful consent. And AI-powered chatbots and agentic AI systems are rapidly accumulating persistent “memory” profiles of users, retaining sensitive personal information across interactions in ways that most Canadians neither understand nor control. This project proposes a harm reduction approach as a practical and principled alternative.

The project proposed by the Fédération québécoise des sports électroniques (FQSE), in collaboration with Esport Canada, aims to carry out a program to raise awareness, disseminate information and co-create a study on privacy protection in the esports ecosystem and online games.
Esports expose players, often minors or young adults, to many risks related to data collection through online games, tournament platforms, anti-cheating systems, streaming platforms, chat platforms such as Discord, team contracts and payment systems.

This research project considers what “meaningful consent” looks like in the context of online gaming. The discussion begins with a survey of the privacy impacts associated with online gaming through the investigation of certain technologies and features. Legal and technical research to convey the role that software updates, unilateral/browse-wrap agreements and settings will lay the foundation for how users can increase their engagement with privacy impacts and control will be compiled. Lastly, the project aims to take a critical look at the advertising strategies and approaches used by online gaming platforms.

Moving out of science labs and into our personal lives through online gaming devices, eyetracking technology brings new opportunities and very real concerns about data privacy. As eyetracking becomes increasingly embedded within such gaming environments, this project will exame privacy concerns regarding the sharing of eye movement data.

Achievement Unlocked? Young Canadians’ Privacy and Consent in Online Gaming is a mixed methods research project that will examine how youth aged 9–18 and their parents/caregivers understand, experience, and navigate privacy and consent within online gaming environments. Led by MediaSmarts, the project will include interactive focus groups with youth ages 9-18, as well as a national survey of parents/caregivers of children aged 9–18. This project will explore how interactive gaming design challenges traditional privacy frameworks, assess the clarity and accessibility of privacy policies and terms of service, evaluate the effectiveness of parental controls and safeguards, and examine whether young people understand and feel empowered to exercise their privacy rights while gaming. This project will generate new, nationally relevant evidence on children’s privacy in interactive gaming environments while producing concrete, accessible educational resources to help Canadian families, educators and young people better understand, exercise, and protect privacy online.

This research project seeks to examine the privacy protection practices of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).