# How does Québec's Law 25 apply to AI agents that handle personal data?

Date: 2026-06-19 · Author: Robert Scales · https://guidetoartificialintelligence.com/en/learn/quebecs-law-25-apply-ai-agents-that/

**Answer:** Law 25 does not name AI agents, but its general rules apply as soon as an agent collects, uses, stores or sends personal information for a business in Québec. In practice that means doing a privacy impact assessment before deploying it, limiting the agent to the information and purposes you told people about, and assessing any transfer outside Québec, which includes many cloud AI services.

An **AI agent** is a language model connected to tools, so it can act rather than only answer: read an inbox, look up a customer file, draft and file a reply. That is what makes agents useful, and why privacy law applies to them. Québec's **Law 25**, which modernized the province's private-sector privacy act in stages from 2022 to 2024, does not mention agents. It does not need to. Its rules attach to what happens to **personal information**, meaning any information about a person that allows them to be identified, whoever, or whatever, handles it.

This article explains the main obligations in general terms, using a worked example. It is not legal advice. The Commission d'accès à l'information (CAI), Québec's privacy regulator, says its own guides are informative and that the law itself prevails; for a real project, read the act on LégisQuébec and consult a privacy professional.

## The obligations that matter most for an agent

The private-sector privacy act (CQLR, chapter P-39.1) contains several duties that an agent project triggers:

| Duty | Section | What it means for an agent |
|---|---|---|
| A person in charge of privacy | 3.1 | Someone, by default the head of the business, answers for compliance; their title and contact must be on your website |
| Privacy impact assessment | 3.3 | Required for any project to acquire or develop an information system that handles personal information |
| Transfers outside Québec | 17 | Assess the risks before information leaves the province, and sign a written agreement |
| Use only for the original purpose | 12 | The agent may use information only for the purposes it was collected for, with limited exceptions |
| Need-to-know access | 20 | Employees and others acting for the business see information only when their duties require it; give the agent the same narrow reach |
| Destruction | 23 | Delete or anonymize information once its purpose is achieved |

A **privacy impact assessment**, called an EFVP in French, is a structured review of how a project could harm people's privacy and what you will do about it. The CAI's guide, updated for Law 25 in September 2023, lists the acquisition of an artificial intelligence system as an example of a project that calls for one. It also says the assessment should be proportionate to the sensitivity, purpose, quantity and location of the information.

## A worked assessment: an agent that reads client emails

A five-person accounting firm in Gatineau wants an agent that reads incoming client emails, sorts them (tax question, document upload, appointment), drafts a reply and saves attachments to the right client folder. The agent runs on a cloud AI service whose servers are in the United States. Following the CAI's steps, a short assessment might look like this:

1. **Describe the goal.** Faster replies and fewer misfiled documents.
2. **Inventory the information.** Names, email addresses, social insurance numbers in attached forms, income figures, and sometimes health or family details mentioned in passing.
3. **Map where it goes.** Inbox, then the AI service in the US for processing, then the firm's document system. Note what the provider keeps, and for how long.
4. **Check proportionality.** The CAI asks whether the project is an effective way to reach the goal, whether a less intrusive option exists, and whether the benefits outweigh the harm to the people concerned. Could the agent work from the email text and leave attachments to a person?
5. **List the risks.** Drawing on the CAI's examples, for this agent: a reply sent to the wrong client, tax data kept in provider logs, an attachment filed in another client's folder.
6. **Choose measures.** Drafts only, with a person approving every reply; no access to the full archive, only the last 30 days; attachments with social insurance numbers flagged for manual handling; a contract with the provider covering retention and training.
7. **Assess the transfer.** Because the information goes outside Québec, section 17 requires weighing its sensitivity, the purposes, the protections in the contract, and the legal framework of the other jurisdiction, then a written agreement.
8. **Record and review.** Write it down, have the person in charge of privacy sign off, and update it when the agent gains a new tool.

The CAI is clear that the assessment weighs consequences for clients, not the firm's costs or reputation.

> **Try it:** List every tool your agent can use, or plans to use. Next to each one, write which personal information it can reach and where that information goes. Any tool you cannot fill in is a gap in your assessment.

## When the agent makes decisions

If an agent decides something about a person entirely on its own, such as refusing a refund or rejecting an application with no human involved, section 12.1 applies. The business must tell the person the decision was made by automated processing, no later than when it informs them of it, and, on request, explain the information used and the main reasons and factors. The person must also be able to submit observations to a staff member who can review the decision.

## What notice do you owe the people involved?

**At collection.** Section 8 requires telling people, when you collect their information, why you are collecting it, how, and what their rights of access and correction are, as well as their right to withdraw consent. If the information may be communicated outside Québec, or to named third parties, you must say so. If an agent processes client emails on a US-based service, your notice should cover that.

**On your website.** Businesses that collect information by technological means must publish a confidentiality policy written in clear and simple language, and publish the title and contact details of the person in charge of privacy. The CAI's checklist adds that information about your governance policies must be published in plain terms.

**When technology can profile.** Section 8.1 adds a duty to inform people before using technology that can identify, locate or profile them, and to explain how those functions are activated. Profiling here means using personal information to assess characteristics such as work performance, economic situation, health, preferences or behaviour. An agent that scores clients by risk or value comes close to that line.

A practical approach is to write the agent's paragraph for your privacy policy before you build it. If you cannot describe in plain language what the agent reads, why, and where the information goes, the project is not ready.

## Sources

- Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (CQLR c P-39.1): https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/P-39.1
- Réaliser une évaluation des facteurs relatifs à la vie privée — Guide d'accompagnement (version 3.0): https://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca/documents/CAI_GU_EFVP.pdf
- Vers la conformité à la Loi sur le privé — Aide-mémoire : nouvelles responsabilités des entreprises, pistes d'action et bonnes pratiques: https://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca/documents/CAI_Guide_obligations_entreprises_vf.pdf