Red Alert For Canadian Digital Rights

🚨 A Red Alert for Digital Rights: Why Bill C‑2 Threatens the Foundation of Consent in Canada

Why Surveillance-Based Identity Is the Problem—And a New Architecture for Trust Is the Solution

🧠 First, a Personal Note on Privacy and Consent

I’ve spent over three decades working at the intersection of digital security, privacy, and civil liberties.

In the 1990s, I began my career as a security expert for Canada’s largest company. Since then, I’ve served as an advisor and investigator for Canadian privacy regulators, and became one of the country’s first internationally recognized privacy professionals.

In 2016, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post titled “Privacy Must Be Defined by Consent in Today’s Connected World.” I argued that in the digital era, privacy is no longer defined by secrecy—it is defined by sovereignty over your identity.

I wrote then—and I still say now:

Privacy is consent.

That’s a bold statement, because consent is a loaded term in our culture. We understand that real consent is sacred: it must be clear, revocable, and freely given. It’s the deepest expression of self-autonomy.

We need to frame privacy the same way—not as a setting, but as a human right. Consent is not just a checkbox. It is the boundary between trust and violation.

Bill C‑2 threatens to erase that boundary.

🔍 What’s in Bill C‑2?

Though framed as a “border security” bill, Bill C‑2 contains sweeping powers that undermine Canada’s digital trust infrastructure:

• Warrantless Access: Allows law enforcement to compel subscriber data from ISPs or platforms based on “reasonable suspicion”—a far lower threshold than existing standards.

• Secret Surveillance Infrastructure: Enables government to force service providers to install surveillance-enabling systems, bypassing normal judicial safeguards.

• No User Notification: Data can be accessed without ever informing the user.

• Cross-Border Data Seizure: Opens the door for foreign governments to request Canadian user data under reciprocal agreements, effectively eroding Canadian digital sovereignty.

This bill doesn’t just tinker with regulations. It rewires the assumptions of the internet—replacing permission with presumption.

🧩 The Real Vulnerability: Humans in the Loop

What Bill C‑2 truly exploits is not just legal ambiguity—it’s technical debt.

Nearly all digital identity systems today are built on the assumption that personal information must be collected and stored in order to verify someone. This creates massive, centralized “honeypots” of personally identifiable information (PII).

And those systems rely on people—lawyers, sysadmins, engineers—to grant access when a request comes in.

This “human-in-the-loop” model is the flaw:

• It invites coercion.

• It enables overreach.

• And it turns privacy into a policy rather than a protocol.

Bill C‑2 turns that flaw into law.

💣 Forcing Businesses to Betray Their Users

Even more disturbing is how Bill C‑2 puts Canadian companies in an impossible ethical bind by weaponizing the “human-in-the-loop” security flaw at the heart of today’s internet.

The bill includes provisions to compel digital service providers to retain or share personal data, even if a user has explicitly withdrawn consent or exercised their legal right to be forgotten.

Worse, it grants these companies legal immunity for complying, effectively rewarding them for breaking the trust of their customers.

This is not just an overreach—it’s the inevitable consequence of building digital identity systems on a broken foundation: the belief that in order to verify a user, you must collect and store massive honeypots of personal data.

Once that data exists, it can be accessed. Once humans can access it, they can be pressured. Bill C‑2 exploits this vulnerability to the fullest.

This isn’t just a privacy risk—it’s a systemic failure in internet architecture.

🔒 The ConsentKeys Solution: Lawful Access, Zero Compromise

At ConsentKeys, we’ve built an identity infrastructure that removes this vulnerability by design.

Our platform is:

• ✅ Law enforcement–friendly — but only with a valid, court-issued production order.

• 🔐 Zero-knowledge by default — Staff, contractors, and even core engineers cannot access user personal data.

• 🧠 Technically enforced — All lawful access requests are handled through a tamper-proof, auditable protocol with no human override.

• 🧬 Patent-pending — Our architecture eliminates human discretion and instead applies strict, verified technical constraints.

This is the only healthy balance in a democracy. It supports public safety without compromising individual rights. It respects the Canadian Charter of Rights while reducing liability for businesses. And most importantly, it ensures consent remains enforceable—not symbolic.

🧭 What This Means for Canadian Businesses

Bill C‑2 is a wake-up call.

If you’re a business relying on legacy logins or central identity providers, you’re now part of a system that:

• Exposes your users to third-party access.

• Makes you a target for coercive government demands.

• Erodes the very trust you’ve worked to build.

Your choice is now clear:

• Continue down the path of compliance by compromise.

• Or lead the way with privacy-first infrastructure that makes betrayal technically impossible.

Your customers care. So should you.

✊ Our Stance & A Call to Action

We stand with civil liberties advocates like ICLMG and OpenMedia in calling for Bill C‑2 to be withdrawn or fundamentally rewritten.

But critique alone is not enough.

We’re building the alternative. A future where trust is earned by protocol, not policy. A future where lawful access is precise, auditable, and rights-respecting. A future where users are protected—not exploited.

📣 What You Can Do

✅ Get Informed

Read the full text of Bill C‑2. Follow coverage from civil society leaders.

📞 Contact Your MP

Make your voice heard. Demand a future where Canadian digital rights are preserved—not quietly overwritten.

📢 Share This Post

Use your voice and your platform. The hashtags #StopBillC2 and #ConsentIsKey can help amplify this message. Because Privacy Shouldn’t Be a Privilege.

It Should Be a Protocol.

— Kris Constable Founder, ConsentKeys.com