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Trump Wants to Tap Your Phone. Ottawa Might Let Him

Bill C-22 will lay the legal groundwork for giving the US warrantless access to our data

T his month, the federal government is rushing surveillance law reform through parliamentary study, with committee hearings on Bill C-22 slated to conclude before the end of May. The legislation—called the Lawful Access Act—would give Ottawa broad new powers to compel technology providers to build surveillance tools into their systems.

Its scope could mean requiring companies to install spy tools into mobile devices, social media and messaging apps, cloud-storage services, video game platforms, smart home devices, live video camera networks, or health and fitness trackers—to name a few examples. The bill would also dilute privacy protections for other digital information, like the identity information behind anonymous social media accounts or IP addresses (often referred to as subscriber information).

The bill has drawn significant criticism, including on both constitutional and cybersecurity grounds. But amid the debate over privacy and state power, another issue has received far less attention: what the legislation could mean for data sharing with foreign law enforcement agencies.

It is widely known that, since 2022, Canada has been negotiating, behind closed doors, a cross-border data-sharing agreement with the United States under the US Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act—or the CLOUD Act. The agreement is controversial. It would require Canada to change its laws to allow US law enforcement to directly issue demands for personal data held by Canadian technology providers.

As outlined last year by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, the agreement could give US authorities like the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Department of Homeland Security the power to carry out real-time surveillance, including wiretaps and phone hacking in Canada, or to issue demands for data that can be obtained from sources “such as cell phone tower dumps, reverse location and keyword warrants, or digital genetic databases, just to name a few examples.”

If the deal goes ahead, US surveillance activities covered by the agreement would no longer require oversight from Canadian authorities or judges, thus relinquishing a core element of Canada’s sovereignty under international law. At a moment when Ottawa says it is rethinking the country’s dependence on American infrastructure and institutions, Bill C-22 risks binding Canada even more tightly to Trump’s surveillance state.

H ere’s how it’s supposed to work. US law enforcement is required to send surveillance requests to Ottawa for screening by officials—who then obtain approval from a Canadian court judge. The same is true in reverse when Canadian authorities want to obtain information from US-based companies.

A CLOUD Act deal changes that. The basic premise is that, in the pursuit of expediency, both countries decide to trust the other to wield surveillance powers on each other’s territory without oversight from the country’s own courts.

However, since Canada began negotiations in 2022, the legal and political landscape in the US has fundamentally changed, and the US rule of law is under serious threat. When it comes to its justice system, perhaps the most consequential recent development was the US Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling in 2024, which decided that the president has “exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials.” As explained by US scholar Jack Goldsmith, the ruling’s conclusion that the president wields power over criminal law investigations “that neither Congress nor the courts can touch” signals yet another major structural shift in the balance of power between the White House, Congress, and the courts.

The court’s interpretation that the president carries unreviewable “discretion” to direct US law enforcement activities only adds to a growing list of fundamental constitutional differences between Canada and the US when it comes to digital surveillance. In Canada, we still uphold the core principle that the justice system must remain free of political interference from the executive branch.

In the US, the dominoes from the Supreme Court’s ruling are toppling. The justice system is embroiled in criminal prosecutions waged based on Trump’s personal vendettas, including against a former FBI director; the........

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