Google joins privacy backlash and warns Canada Bill C-22 could 'break end-to-end encryption' and create a 'surveillance infrastructure'

• Google and Apple are urging Canadian lawmakers to provide explicit protections for end-to-end encryption
• Tech giants warn that, as it stands, Canada's Bill C-22 could weaken overall user security
• The proposed law has already faced severe backlash from Meta, Signal, VPN providers, and privacy advocates

Google and Apple have intensified their opposition to Canada's controversial Bill C-22, warning that the proposed legislation could force them to compromise end-to-end encryption and create massive cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

What's also known as the Lawful Access Act — proposed by Canada's ruling Liberal Party and is currently being debated in the House of Commons — aims to give law enforcement greater access to data to investigate security threats. However, tech companies fear that the legislation grants the government unchecked authority to issue secret orders without judicial oversight.

For everyday citizens, the stakes couldn't be higher. If the bill passes in its current form, the devices and secure messaging apps users rely on daily could be secretly compromised. To protect your digital footprint from government overreach, utilizing the best VPNs or encrypted messaging apps is becoming an increasingly essential step. But even the strongest privacy tools struggle if underlying device encryption is legally mandated to feature a backdoor.

In testimony before the House of Commons' Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, representatives from both Google and Apple pushed lawmakers to add explicit protections for encryption.

"Secret orders are out of step with other democratic countries and would severely restrict companies' ability to be transparent with users about how their data is protected," said Jeanette Patell, director for government affairs and public policy in Canada for Google — as reported by Reuters.

The ongoing backlash against Bill C-22

The proposed legislation would require "electronic service providers" to adjust their systems to give surveillance and monitoring capabilities to police services and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). It could also force companies to retain user metadata for up to a year.

In a brief submitted to the committee, Google warned that the bill establishes a "surveillance infrastructure" and gives the Minister of Public Safety sweeping powers. The search giant cautioned that without a stronger definition of what constitutes a "systemic vulnerability," the law could be used to mandate backdoors.

"Without a stronger definition of 'systemic vulnerability,' the law could be used to decrease overall user security, by creating backdoors that would break end-to-end encryption and create significant cybersecurity risks, facilitating foreign interference and weakening global user privacy," Google stated in its submission.

The company was absolute in its stance on user privacy: "Google has never built a backdoor or other mechanism to circumvent end-to-end encryption in our products. If we say a product is end-to-end encrypted, it is end-to-end encrypted."

Google is not fighting this battle alone. The bill has faced steep pushback from encrypted messaging app Signal, as well as Meta and major VPN providers like Windscribe, ExpressVPN, and Proton VPN.

Apple has also drawn a hard line. When asked by a Conservative member of parliament whether Apple would pull out of Canada if forced to build a backdoor, Erik Neuenschwander, Apple's senior director for user privacy and child safety, kept the pressure on lawmakers.

"I can't speculate what would happen in that situation," Neuenschwander said, according to Reuters. "Through this engagement and the continued dialogue, we hope to have positive amendments made to the bill."

Apple's threat is far from empty. The iPhone maker recently demonstrated its willingness to walk away from markets rather than compromise user security, famously killing its iCloud end-to-end encryption feature in the UK after receiving a secret order.

Whether Canada will force a similar tech exodus remains to be seen.