UN Human Rights Watchdog Finds Proposed Surveillance Law (Bill C-22) Runs Afoul of International Human Rights

In an advisory opinion issued last Tuesday, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights held that several elements of Bill C-22, the government’s controversial surveillance proposal, are inconsistent with international human rights standards.

The assessment, which was requested by MP Jenny Kwan, is the latest indication that Bill C-22 is excessive in its breadth of application and its inconsistency with global standards could threaten Canada’s ongoing attempts to integrate digitally with partners in the European Union. Indeed, past agreements between Canada and the EU have been invalidated on the basis of deficiencies in Canada’s human rights framework.

In confirming that Bill C-22 falls short of international standards, the assessment also poses questions for the government’s assertions that Bill C-22 is merely aligning Canada with its Five Eyes intelligence partners.

Bill C-22 poses a severe threat to privacy and could undermine the security of critical tools we all rely on to interact in a digital world that’s increasingly under threat. Under Bill C-22, the government will be able to impose surveillance by design obligations in secret, transforming any digital entity into a surveillance tool. The government will also have the power to force digital entities to keep highly sensitive metadata on every single user of their service for up to 6 months, even where doing so would otherwise violate privacy laws.

Surveillance by design mandates like this undermine the privacy of every single person because the surveillance tools and data troves they create become lucrative targets that have been compromised in a number of occasions by cybercriminals and foreign spies.

Bill C-22 also paves the way to Canada’s adoption of information sharing agreements with governments who have a track record of abusing cross-border cooperation mechanisms to digitally repress communities in Canada and other countries.

In its stark assessment of Bill C-22, the international human rights body points to several critical deficiencies in the legislative proposal. These deficiencies include:

• The government’s ability to impose surveillance by design mechanisms onto service providers in secret, and without robust judicial authorization;
• The government’s ability to obligate digital service providers to keep metadata (including sensitive location and digital interaction data) indiscriminately on everyone including in situations where it cannot be linked to a specific investigation or security threat;
• The government’s ability to impose surveillance by design obligations that will break critical technical safeguards, including end-to-end encryption;
• The need to include individual notice requirements and other safeguards into computer search provisions; and
• The need to safeguard against misuse of Canada’s cross-border surveillance framework for transnational repression purposes by ensuring that Canada cannot use its surveillance powers to facilitate investigations of activities that are not criminal here by law enforcement agencies in other countries.

Bill C-22 is currently being considered by the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veteran Affairs (SECD).

Read the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Bill C-22 assessment here.

Read more about Bill C-22 here.

Sign CCLA’s petition calling on the Senate and the government to fix Bill C-22, here.