A new report by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) released on Monday found that Canada’s Bill C-26 will allow the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s national cryptology agency which provides the Canadian government with technology security as well as foreign signals intelligence, to escape transparency requirements.
Bill C-26 grants the CSE additional powers concerning cyber security. It allows the agency to issue “cyber security directions” to some businesses “for the purpose of protecting a critical cyber system.” When a direction is issued, “Every designated operator… is prohibited from disclosing, or allowing to be disclosed, the fact that a cyber security direction was issued and the content of that direction”. The Bill passed through Parliament in June and is currently under consideration by Canada’s Senate.
These cyber-security directives allow the CSE to covertly require companies to undergo certain policies. For example, they may be able to secretly instruct telecommunications companies to install backdoors into Canada’s mobile networks.
The CIGI argued that this power decreases the CSE’s accountability. Instead of focusing on preventing cyber-attacks, they claim that the law “promotes a security policy based on secrecy — an approach highly unlikely to engender goodwill from businesses or public confidence in our democratic institutions.” This argument is not unique to the CIGI. Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab also warn that Bill C-26 expands the CSE’s surveillance capacities:
In doing so, the government has set itself up to be the sole arbiter of when, and on what conditions, Canadians deserve security for their most confidential communications – personal, business, religious, or otherwise.
The Bill’s supporters in Parliament disagreed with these criticisms. Its sponsor, the Liberal Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendicino, claimed the law was necessary to require specific companies to “establish a cybersecurity program.” After passing quickly through its three readings in Parliament, C-26 is now under consideration in Canada’s Senate.
