Apple and Google urge Canada to add judge review to online safety bill

Apple and Google are pressing Ottawa to put a judge between the government and any order that could weaken encryption, turning Bill C-22 into a contest over who gets to police the internet. The companies argue that without judicial review, confidential instructions could be used to compel backdoors in products and services while users are left unaware their data protections have been altered.

Bill C-22, formally the Lawful Access Act, 2026, was introduced in the House of Commons on March 12 by Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree and Justice Minister Sean Fraser, then tabled on April 24 and sent to the House Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The government says the measure is meant to help investigators respond to child sexual exploitation, fraud, terrorism, organized crime, radicalization and foreign interference, and to modernize lawful-access rules that officials say have not kept pace with internet services, satellite communications and messaging platforms.

Public Safety Canada says Part 2 of the bill would not create new powers to intercept communications or obtain information. Instead, it would require selected electronic service providers to maintain technical capabilities so they can comply with existing lawful orders under the Criminal Code and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. Officials also say the bill would allow regulations on retention of prescribed metadata for a reasonable period of no longer than one year, but not for content, web-browsing history or social media activity. The department has argued that Canada’s current framework still rests on a 1995 condition of license that covers only voice telephony.

That framing has not eased the concern from Apple, Google and Meta. Apple told lawmakers the bill could let the government force companies to break encryption by inserting backdoors, while Meta’s policy representative told the committee on May 7 that the powers were sweeping and the safeguards and legal definitions were unclear. Google’s Canada policy representative said secret orders would be out of step with other democratic countries and would limit companies’ ability to tell users how their information is protected.

The fight reaches beyond Ottawa. The bill draws on models in Britain and Australia that are designed to give law enforcement faster access to data in investigations, and U.S. House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans have already warned Canada about privacy and security risks. The Department of Justice issued a Charter Statement when the bill was tabled, saying the minister had reviewed it for possible inconsistency with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With the bill still before committee, the final shape of Canada’s lawful-access rules could help set the tone for how other democracies try to balance child-safety enforcement, civil liberties and encryption.