A Toronto-based VPN company designed to circumvent countries' censorship has announced it will leave Canada if the Liberals' Lawful Access Act passes — taking with it over $600,000 given to it by the feds this year.As reported by the Globe and Mail, Psiphon has recently threatened to leave Canada altogether, including its University of Toronto-based Citizen Lab, if the Liberals continue with Bill C-22, also known as the Lawful Access Act.Psiphon would be taking its $685,000 grant along with it, given by the National Research Council Canada (NRCC) between January and July, meant to fund the "integration of AI" into Psiphon's VPN network.Kenzie Elsworthy, vice-president of Psiphon, told the Western Standard the company would prefer to remain Canadian."Government support, including from the National Research Council, goes toward improving technology that millions of people worldwide rely on to reach the open internet, and that Canada benefits from being home to," stated Elsworthy..CARPAY: Liberals’ Bill C-22 Lawful Access Act is how free countries become surveillance states."That's exactly why Bill C-22 is such a concern. It would force a successful, Canadian-built company to leave, at the same time the country is investing in companies like ours," pointed out Elsworthy."We spend our days protecting people from authoritarian surveillance. This bill would compel Psiphon to help build an arbitrary surveillance system in Canada," stated Elsworthy also to the Globe and Mail.The bill would provide the feds with the ability to "legally obtain certain information or intercept communications," which according to John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms means "electronic service providers" would supply data of users to the feds, without users' permission.Providers like AI companies, Rogers, Bell, Google, and WhatsApp, all would have to retain up to a year's worth of user metadata and build systems to hand over data to the feds so they can then obtain warrants and demand users' information (name, IP address, email, etc.) more conveniently.This contrasts with Psiphon's purpose for its VPN: to "bypass censorship, access unfettered information, and stay connected, especially when governments or other actors attempt to restrict online communications."In light of the counterintuitive bill, Psiphon may leave Canada with its 20 million worldwide monthly users..The VPN company says it receives a surge in users when there is a spike in censorship repression, like in February when Tehran cracked down on protesters; Psiphon then suddenly had 21 million users in Iran.The company also had 3.5 million users per month in Myanmar, previously Burma, where its military junta has used internet blackouts to cut off communication channels and banned the use of VPNs that encrypt a user's internet traffic and disguise the location form which they are connected to the internet.This is not the first time the Bill C-22 has received criticism from tech giants.The bill was amended before its summer recess to address complaints from Apple and Meta, which claimed the bill would compromise cybersecurity and privacy.Currently, the bill is set to be on its second reading in the Senate, and Elsworthy is asking "the Senate to reconsider Bill C-22 so that open-source, privacy-protecting companies like Psiphon can continue operating in Canada.""This is still fixable," she added..Last month, tech giants wrote to Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree urging further changes to the bill, saying it would force companies to weaken its encryption or "build intercept capabilities."Among the signatories was Windscribe, another Toronto-based VPN company with over 100 million users worldwide, which has warned it will leave Canada if the bill passes.Psiphon differs from many other software companies since it has an "open-source," public code designed to build trust among users.But under the lawful access bill, tech companies would have to make changes to their software or systems to allow surveillance without making said changes public..Elsworthy says this is why Psiphon's software is trusted, but "the moment we are forced to add a secret capability, that trust is gone, and so is the product.""You cannot build a secret backdoor into open-source code. Every line we ship is public.""Any access capability this bill forces us to build would be visible to the whole world, including the authoritarian governments our users are trying to escape.""That is not lawful access. It is a published vulnerability."."We do not want to leave Canada. We were built here, originally out of the University of Toronto, and we have been here for nearly 20 years. But if this bill passes as written, relocating is the only way the work continues. That is not a choice we would weigh. It is the only option left," Elsworthy stated.Simon Lafortune, a spokesperson for Anandasangaree, commented that "the existence of a lawful-access framework does not, on its own, make it impossible to operate a secure, privacy-protective service in Canada.""It is also important to note that the fact a company falls under the definition of electronic service providers (ESPs) does not mean that it would be the subject of lawful access obligations under the Act. Most ESPs will not be core providers, nor will they be subject to a Ministerial order," he stated.Ron Deibert, a University of Toronto professor and director of the Citizen Lab, stated as Bill C-22 as it is now written, "will make it impossible for a large number of invaluable privacy-preserving tools and applications from operating in Canada."
