- Google and Apple are urging Canadian lawmakers to provide explicit protections against end-to-end encryption
- Tech giants warn that Canada’s Bill C-22 as it stands could weaken overall user security
- The proposed law has already faced serious pushback from Meta, Signal, VPN providers and privacy advocates
Google and Apple have stepped up their opposition to Canada’s controversial Bill C-22, warning that the proposed legislation could force them to compromise end-to-end encryption and create massive cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
What is also known as the Lawful Access Act – proposed by Canada’s ruling Liberal Party and currently being debated in the House of Commons – aims to give law enforcement greater access to data to investigate security threats. However, tech companies fear the legislation gives the government unchecked authority to issue secret orders without judicial oversight.
For ordinary citizens, the effort could not be higher. If the bill passes in its current form, the devices and secure messaging apps that users rely on every day could be secretly compromised. To protect your digital footprint from government overreach by using best VPNs or encrypted messaging apps is becoming an increasingly important step. But even the strongest privacy tools struggle if the underlying device encryption is legally required to have a backdoor.
In testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, representatives from both Google and Apple pushed lawmakers to add explicit protections to encryption.
“Secret orders are out of step with other democratic countries and will severely limit the ability of companies to be transparent with users about how their data is protected,” said Jeanette Patell, director of government affairs and public policy in Canada for Google – which reported by Pakinomist.
The ongoing backlash against Bill C-22
In a brief submitted to the committee, Google warned that the bill establishes a “surveillance infrastructure” and gives the minister of public safety sweeping powers. The search giant warned that without a stronger definition of what constitutes a “systemic vulnerability”, the law could be used to mandate backdoors.
“Without a stronger definition of ‘systemic vulnerability,’ the law could be used to diminish overall user security by creating backdoors that would break end-to-end encryption and create significant cybersecurity risks, facilitate foreign interference, and weaken global user privacy,” Google said in its submission.
The company was absolute in its stance on user privacy: “Google has never built a backdoor or other mechanism to bypass end-to-end encryption in our products. If we say a product is end-to-end encrypted, it is end-to-end encrypted.”
Regarding Canada’s Bill C-22: @ProtonVPN is Swiss. Complying with foreign surveillance orders without Swiss court proceedings is a criminal offence. It doesn’t happen. We will defend our Canadian users and never compromise them. We will fight C-22’s application with every means available. pic.twitter.com/zXjx9AaMG519 May 2026
Google is not fighting this battle alone. The bill has faced steep backlash from encrypted messaging app Signal, as well as Meta and major VPN providers like Windscribe, ExpressVPN and Proton VPN.
Apple has also drawn a hard line. Asked by a Conservative MP if Apple would pull out of Canada if they were forced to build a backdoor, Erik Neuenschwander, Apple’s senior director of user protection and child safety, kept the pressure on lawmakers.
“I can’t speculate what would happen in that situation,” Neuenschwander said, according to Pakinomist. “Through this engagement and continued dialogue, we hope to make positive changes to the bill.”
Apple’s threat is far from empty. The iPhone maker recently demonstrated its willingness to walk away from markets rather than compromise user security, famously killing its iCloud end-to-end encryption feature in the UK after receiving a secret order.
Whether Canada will force a similar tech exodus remains to be seen.
