The Canadian government is preparing to give away Canadians\u2019 digital lives\u2014to U.S. police, to the Donald Trump administration, and possibly to foreign spy agencies.<\/p>\n
Bill C-2<\/a>, the so-called Strong Borders Act, is a sprawling surveillance bill with multiple privacy-invasive provisions<\/a>. But the thrust is clear: it\u2019s a roadmap to aligning Canadian surveillance with U.S. demands.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s also a giveaway of Canadian constitutional rights in the name of \u201cborder security.\u201d If passed, it will shatter privacy protections that Canadians have spent decades building. This will affect anyone using Canadian internet services, including email, cloud storage, VPNs, and messaging apps.\u00a0<\/p>\n A joint letter<\/a>, signed by dozens of Canadian civil liberties groups and more than a hundred Canadian legal experts and academics, puts it clearly: Bill C-2 is \u201ca multi-pronged assault on the basic human rights and freedoms Canada holds dear,\u201d and \u201can enormous and unjustified expansion of power for police and CSIS to access the data, mail, and communication patterns of people across Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n Setting The Stage For Cross-Border Surveillance\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Bill C-2 isn\u2019t just a domestic surveillance bill. It\u2019s a Trojan horse for U.S. law enforcement\u2014quietly building the pipes to ship Canadians\u2019 private data straight to Washington.<\/p>\n If Bill C-2 passes, Canadian police and spy agencies will be able to demand information about peoples\u2019 online activities based on the low threshold of \u201creasonable suspicion.\u201d Companies holding such information would have only five days to challenge an order, and blanket immunity from lawsuits if they hand over data.\u00a0<\/p>\n Police and CSIS, the Canadian intelligence service, will be able to find out whether you have an online account with any organization or service in Canada. They can demand to know how long you\u2019ve had it, where you\u2019ve logged in from, and which other services you\u2019ve interacted with, with no warrant required.<\/p>\n The bill will also allow for the introduction of encryption backdoors. Forcing companies to surveil their customers is allowed under the law<\/a> (see part 15), as long as these mandates don\u2019t introduce a \u201csystemic vulnerability\u201d\u2014a term the bill doesn\u2019t even bother to define.\u00a0<\/p>\n The information gathered under these new powers is likely to be shared with the United States. Canada and the U.S. are currently negotiating a misguided agreement to share law enforcement information<\/a> under the US CLOUD Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. and U.K. put a CLOUD Act deal in place in 2020<\/a>, and it hasn\u2019t been good for users. Earlier this year, the U.K. home office ordered Apple<\/a> to let it spy on users\u2019 encrypted accounts. That security risk caused Apple to stop offering U.K. users<\/a> certain advanced encryption features,\u00a0, and lawmakers and officials in the United States have raised concerns<\/a> that the UK\u2019s demands might have been designed to leverage its expanded CLOUD Act powers.<\/p>\n If Canada moves forward with Bill C-2 and a CLOUD Act deal, American law enforcement could demand data from Canadian tech companies in secrecy\u2014no notice to users would be required. Companies could also expect gag orders preventing them from even mentioning they have been forced to share information with US agencies.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t speculation. Earlier this month, a Canadian government official told Politico<\/a> that this surveillance regime would give Canadian police \u201cthe same kind of toolkit\u201d that their U.S. counterparts have under the PATRIOT Act and FISA. The bill allows for \u201ctechnical capability orders.\u201d Those orders mean the government can force Canadian tech companies, VPNs, cloud providers, and app developers\u2014regardless of where in the world they are based\u2014to build surveillance tools into their products.<\/p>\n Under U.S. law, non-U.S. persons have little protection from foreign surveillance. If U.S. cops want information on abortion access, gender-affirming care, or political protests happening in Canada\u2014they\u2019re going to get it. The data-sharing won\u2019t necessarily be limited to the U.S., either. There\u2019s nothing to stop authoritarian states from demanding this new trove of Canadians\u2019 private data that will be secretly doled out by its law enforcement agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n EFF joins the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, OpenMedia, researchers at Citizen Lab, and dozens of other Canadian organizations and experts in asking the Canadian federal government to withdraw Bill C-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n Further reading: <\/p>\n\n