CCLA and Coalition to MPs: Scrap Unprecedented Surveillance Measures in Bill C-22

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) joined a broad coalition of civil society groups today in calling on all members of parliament to oppose Bill C-22. If passed into law, the legislative proposal would represent the broadest expansion of government surveillance powers in recent Canadian history.

While providing some improvements over its predecessor legislation—Bill C-2, the controversial “Strong Borders Act”—Bill C-22 leaves many of the initial proposal’s most problematic elements in place while introducing a new and highly intrusive power.

Among its many privacy-eroding measures, Bill C-22 would:

• Pave the way for expanded information-sharing with the United States and numerous other governments including those with a history of abuse. Expansion of information-sharing with foreign governments in the absence of effective safeguards is particularly reckless at a time when cross-border persecution of diaspora communities—including through abuse of cross-border police cooperation tools—is on the rise.
• Give the government the power to force any electronic mechanism to build new surveillance tools and embed these at the core of their service, potentially transforming anything with a digital component into spyware. The mandated surveillance capability need not have anything to do with the actual functionality of the service in question. Backdoors like these also cannot be effectively limited to law enforcemend access—Cybercriminals and foreign adversaries have repeatedly and successfully targeted the mass surveillance capabilities created by similar regimes. Overall, the proposal creates untenable privacy and cybersecurity risks.
• Lower the threshold for sensitive subscriber data, allowing government agencies to cast a wide net when conducting investigations; and
• Give the government the power to force any digital entity to keep highly sensitive information on every single person in Canada or abroad for up to one year. Information could include every single person’s location at any time over the course of the year, a complete record of everyone you interacted with online, and more. Bill C-22 includes no mechanism to place limits on who can access these data troves or for what purpose, making it potentially fair game for any and all criminal and civil investigations as well as for commercial exploitation by the private company being compelled to retain the data.

The letter, signed by over 25 leading civil society groups and experts to date, acknowledges attempts to curb some intrusive elements of Bill C-2, including by significantly narrowing a problematic warrantless power to access sensitive customer information held by service providers. But the proposal fails to address fundamental flaws in its predecessor legislation and, without any consultation, it adds a sweeping new power.

As with many other legislative proposals advanced by the current government, Bill C-22 is moving through parliament with breakneck speed.

The Bill has already been referred to committee after barely one week of debate in the House, and despite the absence of a mandatory Charter statement or a legislative summary. Compounding the fast tracking and lack of information regarding the Bill, the government’s description of its own legislation in parliament has been deficient.

Ultimately, the government has failed to make its case for the wide-ranging powers in Bill C-22 and the threat to privacy and cybersecurity that they pose.

The letter therefore calls on all Members of Parliament to reject the highly intrusive elements of Bill C-22.

You can read the letter in French or in English.

You can read more on the threat of information-sharing with the U.S. here and about Bill C-2 in general here

To take action on Bill C-22, visit OpenMedia’s “Stop the Surveillance” page and ICLMG’s “Stop C-22” page.