Ottawa Says Bill C-22 Won’t Spy on You Through Your Car, Smart TV or Home Camera

The federal government is defending its controversial surveillance bill after a wave of pushback from tech companies, legal experts, and public fact-checkers. It’s now making news headlines in the U.S. as well.

In an emailed statement to Bloomberg, the federal government reiterated it “categorically rejects claims that Bill C-22 would enable the surveillance of Canadians through everyday devices such as cars, home cameras or smart TVs, or that it would require companies to introduce so-called ‘backdoors’ into their products.”

The government says the bill is simply designed to ensure police have the legal tools to “prevent, investigate and respond” to modern crime.

Public Safety Canada has been repeatedly Community Noted on X, with the latest happening on May 25. After claiming that Bill C-22 “does not create new authorities, such as surveillance powers, for law enforcement and CSIS.” Fact-checkers on the platform added that the bill actually “creates new warrantless entry, search, and data seizure powers for Minister-designated inspectors.”

University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist previously called out the government’s messaging directly. “Everyone else is not doing it,” he said. “The Canadian government’s claim that its lawful access bill merely matches other Five Eyes countries is false. Bill C-22’s metadata retention and technical capability mandates risk driving digital services out of Canada.”

Toronto-based VPN company Tailscale said to Bloomberg it would challenge any government order asking it to collect new data, weaken encryption or build in some sort of surveillance access.

Proton VPN warned the bill would force VPN providers to retain user metadata for up to a year, something that would actually violate Swiss and European law for Proton itself. Toronto-based Windscribe VPN also called out the government’s mixed messaging after Public Safety Canada separately encouraged Canadians to use VPNs to stay safe on public Wi-Fi.

Apple and Meta have both told the government the bill would weaken encryption at the government’s direction and are firmly opposed, while this week Google’s own submission entered the mix, with the company saying it would not succumb to creating backdoors to break encryption.