Justice Minister Sean Fraser appeared earlier this week before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, relying on what has become a standard defence of Bill C-22’s privacy implications, telling Conservative MP Roman Baber that the bill lets police access “a modern version” of what used to appear in the phone book. The “it’s just phone book information” claim has been repeatedly recycled by cabinet ministers and MPs alike. Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree used the same framing to open the government’s second reading defence of the bill on April 15th, telling the House that “twenty-five years ago, there were phone books that every household had. Bell Canada would deliver phone books to virtually every household” and presenting lawful access as a restoration of what those phone books once provided to police. The problem is that the analogy is plainly misleading as the data captured by Bill C-22, whether subscriber data or metadata, is nothing like the name, address, and phone number that once filled the phone book.
Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh
Privacy
Apple on Bill C-22: “This Bill Allows the Government of Canada to Force Companies to Break Encryption by Inserting Backdoors into their Products”
The hearings into Bill C-22 continued yesterday with appearances from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Apple, Google, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and a series of law enforcement associations. The hearings were a mess: the Privacy Commissioner’s reform recommendations sent in advance weren’t distributed to MPs, one Liberal MP admitted to the confusion about how the bill applies, another Liberal MP thought a good strategy would be to target Apple for not being sufficiently supportive of lawful access initiatives, and the final 30 minutes was spent fruitlessly trying to negotiate an extension to the hearings, which have clearly been inadequate to deal with the many issues raised the legislation.
I could go on, but the fundamental takeaway from the day can be summarized in this single 22-second clip from Apple, which makes clear that the bill poses real risks, and the government thus far seems uninterested in addressing them. The Bill C-22 hearing may have been a mess, but the message was clear.
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 269: Inside the Bill C-22 Committee Hearing for the Case Against Government’s Lawful Access Plans
The government’s lawful access bill has been the target of criticism for weeks, with companies, governments, and experts on privacy and security all sounding the alarm. Much of the momentum against the bill began to build once the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security held hearings on the legislation, providing an opportunity for critics to voice their concerns. Those hearings continue this week with both Google and Apple scheduled to appear.
For this episode of the Law Bytes podcast, I go into the hearing room for my appearance on Bill C-22. The appearance was a rerun of the podcast episode featuring a roundtable on the bill with David Fraser and Robert Diab. This episode features my opening statement and exchanges with MPs from all parties on a wide range of issues.
The Government Tries to Make the Case for Bill C-22: Why Its Own Use Cases Reveal Disproportionate Overreach
Faced with growing criticism of Bill C-22, the government this week mounted a coordinated defence, with senior officials from CSIS, the RCMP, and Public Safety Canada sitting for on-the-record briefings with the Globe and Mail, the CBC, and others. While officials tried to make the case for lawful access, they failed to make the case for Bill C-22, as their use cases reveal a consistent pattern of overreach. Indeed, whether the issue is metadata retention or the technical capabilities the bill would mandate, the powers it would grant extend well beyond the targeted needs the officials describe, resulting in a disproportionate bill in need of significant amendment.
Tech Exodus: Why Bill C-22’s Privacy and Security Risks Will Drive Digital Services Out of the Country
Over the past week, a growing number of tech companies have warned that they may be forced to leave Canada if Bill C-22, the lawful access bill, remains unchanged. The government’s response to warnings from Signal, Windscribe, NordVPN, Apple, and Meta is that the companies are misreading the bill. But the prospect of a tech exodus from Canada rests on clear-cut privacy and security risks that do not apply in the U.S. or Europe. When Yegor Sak, the Toronto-headquartered CEO of Windscribe, told the Globe and Mail last week that he is actively looking at moving the company out of Canada or when Signal’s Vice President of Strategy and Global Affairs Udbhav Tiwari told the same paper that Signal “would rather pull out of the country than be compelled to compromise on the privacy promises we have made to our users,” those statements are a direct response to the government’s legislative choices in the Supporting Authorized Access to Information Act (SAAIA), the second half of Bill C-22, that will have serious economic implications for the future of the tech sector in Canada.
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