Canada's Bill C-22 could drive out a tool 20 million people use to beat censorship
Psiphon says it is preparing to leave Canada if Bill C-22 passes as written. It joins Signal, NordVPN, and Windscribe in opposing the surveillance law.
Canada's Bill C-22, a contentious lawful access bill, is prompting tech providers to consider leaving the country. Toronto-based company Psiphon, which has around 20 million monthly users, has begun planning to relocate its operations. The bill would force Psiphon to create surveillance capabilities for police and CSIS, compromising its open-source trust and safety features for users in authoritarian countries like Iran, Russia, and China.
Psiphon publishes all its code, making it impossible to hide a backdoor, according to Vice-president Kenzie Elsworthy. The company is trusted due to the open-source model, but Bill C-22 could require changes to the system, which Elsworthy claims would be a "published vulnerability." The law has cleared the House of Commons and is now facing Senate scrutiny.
Psiphon joins other tech providers like Signal, NordVPN, and Windscribe, who have also threatened to leave Canada if the bill passes unchanged.
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