DuckDuckGo is threatening to pull its VPN from Canada if the federal government’s lawful access bill, known as Bill C-22 becomes law.
Gabriel Weinberg, the company’s founder and CEO, confirmed the move to The Globe and Mail. The search engine itself will stay available to Canadians, but the VPN is gone if Bill C-22 passes.
The bill, currently being reviewed by a House of Commons committee, would force electronic service providers to build surveillance capabilities into their systems for police and CSIS. The sticking point for most tech companies is a requirement to store customer metadata for up to a year. That metadata doesn’t include browsing history or message contents, but it does capture who you’re communicating with and where you are. Cybersecurity experts warn that stockpiling that much data just creates a massive target for hackers.
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says the government is working on amendments to protect encryption, but Ottawa isn’t budging on the metadata retention requirement.
“C-22’s security backdoors and metadata retention requirements conflict with DuckDuckGo’s privacy policy, which states simply that we don’t track you,” he said. “If the bill passes, we will be forced to stop offering our VPN in Canada,” added Weinberg.
DuckDuckGo isn’t alone. Private messaging app Signal previously threatened to leave Canada entirely rather than weaken its encryption, and Toronto-based VPN company Windscribe has looked into moving its operations out of the country, joining the likes of NordVPN.
Apple, Google and Meta have all opposed Bill C-22, saying they would not create backdoors and break encryption.
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