Signal Says it Might Exit Canada if Forced to Comply with Lawful Access Bill

Privacy messaging app Signal has said it may exit Canada if forced to comply with the country’s proposed lawful access bill, which would require companies to build technical surveillance capabilities that some argue could threaten end-to-end encryption.

In an interview with Canadian news outlet The Globe and Mail on Thursday, Signal’s vice president of strategy and global affairs, Udbhav Tiwari, argued that the bill could threaten encryption and leave private messaging services vulnerable to potential cyberattacks. 

Bill C-22 is part of a regulatory package introduced in March. It would require electronic service providers to build surveillance capabilities and retain certain user metadata for up to a year as part of a broader push to help law enforcement investigate crimes such as terrorism and child exploitation.

Some have criticized the bill because of its implications for user privacy, echoing concerns of the EU’s controversial chat control proposal, which posed threats to encryption by pushing for client-side scanning of private messages. 

In an X post on Thursday, Canadian Conservative Party Member of Parliament Jacob Mantle claimed that “every member of Parliament in the country” uses Signal primarily for its safety and privacy features, arguing that the bill would contradict that and allow the government to read everyone’s messages.

Tiwari said the firm “would rather pull out of the country” than comply with the law and compromise on the “privacy promises” it has made to users.

“Bill 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,” he added.

The bill is not yet law, as it still has to pass through parliamentary review and receive royal assent before taking effect. Committee hearings began on May 7 and are ongoing.

Tech giants such as Meta have welcomed certain aspects of the bill, noting that it would “provide law enforcement with an effective legal framework to obtain critical evidence and protect public safety,” while also raising concerns that certain parts negatively affect “Canadians’ privacy and cybersecurity.”

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Signal isn’t the only company feeling pressure from the proposed regulation. In an X post on Thursday responding to The Globe and Mail article, VPN service provider Windscribe said it would follow Signal out of Canada, arguing that the law poses a threat to user privacy.

“We won’t be far behind if C-22 passes. In its current state, VPNs would almost certainly require us to log identifying user data,” Windscribe said.

“Signal isn’t headquartered in Canada so they can just shut off Canadian servers, but our HQ is. We pay an ungodly amount of taxes to this corrupt government, and in return they want to destroy the entire essence of our service to basically spy on its own citizens,” Windscribe added.

Cointelegraph reached out to Signal for comment and will update the article if the company responds.

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