Federal employees across the country are now blocked from using major streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video on government networks—not because of tech strain, but because it looks bad.
That’s according to internal government emails obtained by CBC News through an access to information request. The documents reveal that the December 2024 ban wasn’t driven by bandwidth concerns, but by a push to manage public perception of how civil servants spend their work hours.
Shared Services Canada (SSC), the agency that manages federal IT infrastructure, cut off access to all major paid streaming services for 45 departments and agencies late last year. That included Hulu (which is not even available in Canada), Apple TV+, Crave, Disney+, Netflix, Prime Video and others.
At the time, SSC publicly claimed these services had “no business value” to the federal government. But behind the scenes, officials were more concerned with how it looked if bureaucrats were caught streaming on the job.
In an October 2024 email to the Treasury Board, SSC president Scott Jones called streaming a “people management issue.” He said that even if streaming doesn’t slow down government networks, it could damage the public’s view of the federal workforce.
“In the current context and with public perception of the public service as it is… there is value in engaging [deputy ministers] on these issues and in committing SSC to take some action,” Jones wrote.
Not long after that message, the streaming ban was rolled out. A report on September 2024 streaming activity, included in the access to information release, showed modest levels of video usage.
Seven other departments, including Global Affairs Canada and Canada Revenue Agency, hovered around 0.75 TB each.
To put that in perspective, 1 TB of data equals roughly 1,000 hours of standard-definition video, or 340 hours in high definition. Even the highest usage departments, which employ tens of thousands of staff, averaged a few hours per person—if that.
In addition, nearly 10 TB of streaming happened on guest Wi-Fi, not internal networks.
One SSC director even acknowledged that overall traffic might have been low due to software that throttles streaming speeds on government systems. But that didn’t stop the agency from acting.
As of March, Canada had over 357,000 federal government employees—not counting the military or RCMP—a 2.6% drop from last year after the first round of cuts since 2015. Maybe streaming Netflix had become the new coffee break? Either way, it’s off the table now—at least on government networks.
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I am surprised those streaming services were not banned earlier. There are less incentive for returning back to the office..lol