{"id":668116,"date":"2026-05-14T03:52:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T03:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668116\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T03:52:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T03:52:22","slug":"signal-warns-it-would-pull-out-of-canada-if-made-to-comply-with-lawful-access-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/668116\/","title":{"rendered":"Signal warns it would pull out of Canada if made to comply with lawful access bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Udbhav Tiwari, Signal vice-president of strategy and global affairs, says Ottawa\u2019s Bill C-22 could threaten encryption and make private messaging services a potential target for cyberattacks.Kiichiro Sato\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Secure messaging service Signal, which uses end-to-end encryption, is warning it would withdraw from Canada if asked to compromise its users\u2019 privacy under Bill C-22, Ottawa\u2019s proposed lawful access legislation. <\/p>\n

In an interview, Udbhav Tiwari, Signal vice-president of strategy and global affairs, said the company has deep concerns about measures in the bill, including its potential to introduce security vulnerabilities. <\/p>\n

Mr. Tiwari said that Signal \u201cwould rather pull out of the country than be compelled to compromise on the privacy promises we have made to our users.\u201d <\/p>\n

He expressed fears that Bill C-22, which is currently being scrutinized by Commons committee, could threaten encryption.<\/p>\n

Mr. Tiwari also warned changes to systems required under the bill could make private messaging services a potential target for cyberattacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBill C-22 could potentially allow hackers to exploit these very vulnerabilities engineered into electronic systems, with private messaging services serving as an ideal target for foreign adversaries,\u201d he added in a text message. <\/p>\n

Spy watchdog asks for greater oversight of proposed lawful access regime, including to boost public trust<\/a><\/p>\n

Signal was founded in 2012 and is not linked to major tech companies. It has millions of Canadian users and is used for secure communication by journalists, dissidents, government agencies, private citizens and politicians. <\/p>\n

The bill would require telecoms, internet companies and other electronic service providers to make changes to their systems to give surveillance capabilities to police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to combat threats and criminal activity. <\/p>\n

Signal runs on its own centralized servers. The only user data it stores are phone numbers, users\u2019 last login information and the date they joined the service. Users\u2019 contacts, chats and other information are stored by users themselves, on their phones. <\/p>\n

The bill would require \u201ccore providers\u201d \u2013 which would later be defined through regulations \u2013 to retain metadata for up to a year.<\/p>\n

The metadata would not include e-mails, web-browsing history, social-media activity or text messages, but it could include information about which telephone numbers have been in touch with each other, and data allowing someone\u2019s location to be pinpointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnd-to-end encryption is incompatible with exceptional access, no matter how creative the route taken to achieve it,\u201d Mr. Tiwari added in a statement. \u201cProvisions that enable the deliberate engineering of vulnerabilities into critical infrastructure like Signal are a grave threat to privacy everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

White hat hackers warn lawful access bill could make it easier for criminals to penetrate Canadian systems<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, a Signal chat between U.S. national security officials and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth mistakenly included a journalist. The chat specified timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop in planned attacks on Yemen\u2019s Houthis.<\/p>\n

At a Commons committee hearing on Bill C-22 earlier this month, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, who introduced the bill, was asked about its impact on encrypted services, and described it as \u201cencryption-neutral.\u201d <\/p>\n

Tech companies, including Apple,<\/a> and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce have warned the lawful access regime proposed by the bill could weaken or break encryption. <\/p>\n

Meta, which owns encrypted messaging service WhatsApp, testified earlier this month to a Commons committee examining the bill<\/a>. Rachel Curran, the tech giant\u2019s head of public policy in Canada, warned that the bill \u201ccould conscript private companies into service as an arm of the government\u2019s surveillance apparatus \u2013 with expansive scope and insufficient safeguards.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs drafted, the bill could require companies like Meta to build or maintain capabilities that break, weaken, or circumvent encryption or other zero-knowledge security architectures, and force providers to install government spyware directly on their systems,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Signal\u2019s Meredith Whittaker on AI and the tension between privacy and public safety<\/a><\/p>\n

Simon Lafortune, a spokesperson for Mr. Anandasangaree, said Wednesday: \u201cWe want to reassure Signal and all service providers that we are not legislating to require them to install capabilities to enable surveillance and any assertions otherwise are false.\u201d <\/p>\n

The broadly worded bill could lead to the rollout of forced metadata collection for messaging apps, said Kate Robertson, a senior research associate at the University of Toronto\u2019s Citizen Lab whose expertise includes cybersecurity, state agencies\u2019 use of personal data and surveillance activities.<\/p>\n

Ms. Robertson said that when recently pressed to commit to protection for encryption, \u201cgovernment officials were reticent.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cEncrypted communication systems are a lifeline for human rights defenders, journalists and dissidents around the world,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Matt Hatfield, director of OpenMedia, a non-profit that advocates for widespread and affordable internet access, said \u201cSignal, WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services could clearly be scoped into Bill C-22 under its current definitions of electronic service providers.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cA future public safety minister could issue orders to them requiring them to retain user metadata,\u201d Mr. Hatfield said in an e-mail. <\/p>\n

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law and professor at the University of Ottawa, said he expected private messaging services to become a high-value target for law enforcement if the bill becomes law, including for obtaining metadata.<\/p>\n

He said that currently, courts focus on obtaining data itself, but the lawful access regime would mandate permanent structural changes to company systems. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a significant difference between court-ordered disclosures and mandates to retrofit or change technical structures,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Udbhav Tiwari, Signal vice-president of strategy and global affairs, says Ottawa\u2019s Bill C-22…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,714],"class_list":["post-668116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}