Apple<\/a> and Alphabet’s Google on Tuesday pushed to amend an online safety bill working its way through Canada’s parliament \u200cto add judicial oversight to what the firms described as a potential for secret \u200corders to break the encryption of their software and devices.<\/p>\nBill C-22 was proposed by Canada’s ruling Liberal Party and \u200bis being debated in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n
The bill is similar to measures enacted in Britain and Australia that aim to give law enforcement officials access to encrypted data. Canadian authorities have said the bill would help them investigate security threats earlier and act more quickly.<\/p>\n
When data is \u200cencrypted “end to end” it means \u2060that no one – including law enforcement and tech firms – can access the data without the key.<\/p>\n
The Canadian bill does not explicitly require technology companies \u2060to break the encryption of their devices, but Apple, Google and Meta Platforms have all come out in opposition. The tech firms argue it sets up a regulatory landscape where they could be \u200bissued secret \u200borders to build a backdoor into their services \u200bor devices without disclosing that backdoor \u200cto users or the public.<\/p>\n
In testimony before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Tuesday, representatives from Apple and Google both pushed to add explicit protections for encryption and judicial oversight to the bill.<\/p>\n
“Secret orders are out of step with other democratic countries and would severely restrict companies’ ability to be transparent with users about \u200chow their data is protected,” said Jeanette Patell, director \u200bfor government affairs and public policy in Canada for \u200bGoogle.<\/p>\n
Apple last year received a secret \u200border to break encryption in the UK, which prompted it to withdraw \u200cencrypted cloud backup features from the country.<\/p>\n
Frank \u200bCaputo, a Conservative member \u200bfrom British Columbia, on Tuesday asked Erik Neuenschwander, senior director for user privacy and child safety at Apple, whether Apple would leave Canada if required to build a backdoor \u200binto its devices.<\/p>\n
“I can’t speculate \u200cwhat would happen in that situation,” Neuenschwander said. “Through this engagement and the continued \u200bdialogue, we hope to have positive amendments made to the bill.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Stephen \u200bNellis in San Francisco; Editing by Jamie Freed)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Stephen Nellis SAN FRANCISCO, May 26 (Reuters) – Apple and Alphabet’s Google on Tuesday pushed to amend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15917,17,8070,2852,26793,26792,26794],"class_list":["post-62411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-apple","tag-canada","tag-encryption","tag-google","tag-judicial-oversight","tag-online-safety-bill","tag-secret-orders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}