- Google and Apple urge Canadian lawmakers to provide explicit protections for end-to-end encryption
- Tech giants warn that in its current form, Canada’s Bill C-22 could weaken overall user security
- The proposed law has already faced harsh backlash from Meta, Signal, VPN providers and privacy advocates.
Google and Apple have stepped up 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 huge cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
What is also known as the Lawful Access Act – proposed by Canada’s ruling Liberal Party and currently being debated in the House of Commons – aims to give law enforcement better access to data to investigate security threats. However, tech companies fear the legislation would give the government unfettered power to issue secret orders without judicial oversight.
For ordinary citizens, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If the bill passes in its current form, the secure messaging devices and apps that users rely on every day could be secretly compromised. To protect your digital footprint from government overreach, using the The best VPNs or encrypted messaging apps are becoming an increasingly essential step. But even the most powerful privacy tools struggle if the devices’ underlying encryption is legally required to feature a backdoor.
Testifying before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, representatives from 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 of government affairs and public policy in Canada for Google. reported by PK Press Club.
Backlash continues against Bill C-22
In a brief submitted to the committee, Google warned that the bill establishes a “surveillance infrastructure” and gives broad powers to the Minister of Public Safety. The search giant warned that without a clearer definition of what constitutes a “systemic vulnerability”, the law could be used to impose backdoors.
“Without a stronger definition of ‘systemic vulnerability,’ the law could be used to diminish overall user security, by creating backdoors that break end-to-end encryption and create significant cybersecurity risks, facilitating foreign interference and weakening global user privacy,” Google said in its filing.
The company has taken an absolute stance on user privacy: “Google has never built a backdoor or other mechanism to bypass end-to-end encryption in our products. If we say a product is end-to-end encrypted, it is end-to-end encrypted.”
Regarding Canada’s Bill C-22: @ProtonVPN is Swiss. Complying with foreign surveillance orders without Swiss legal procedure constitutes a criminal offense. This will not happen. We will defend our Canadian users and never compromise them. We will fight the C-22 demand by every means available. pic.twitter.com/zXjx9AaMG5May 19, 2026
Google is not fighting this battle alone. The bill was strongly opposed by encrypted messaging app Signal, as well as Meta and major VPN providers such as Windscribe, ExpressVPN, and Proton VPN.
Apple has also drawn a hard line. Asked by a Conservative MP whether Apple would pull out of Canada if it was 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 on what would happen in this situation,” Neuenschwander said, according to PK Press Club. “Through this engagement and continued dialogue, we hope that positive amendments will be made to the bill.”
Apple’s threat is far from vain. The iPhone maker recently demonstrated its willingness to move away from markets rather than compromise user security, by removing its iCloud end-to-end encryption feature in the UK after receiving a secret order.
It remains to be seen whether Canada will force a similar technological exodus.
