Submission to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security: Charter analysis concerning cybersecurity and telecommunications reform in Bill C-26

Citizen Lab’s submission to Canada’s SECU on Bill C‑26 critiques the draft telecom cybersecurity reforms for excessive secrecy, weak safeguards, and broad information‑collection/sharing powers that risk infringing Charter rights (s.2(b) expression, s.8 privacy, s.15 equality), while highlighting geolocation surveillance threats from 3G/4G/5G signaling vulnerabilities; it recommends making orders necessary, proportionate, time‑bounded and publicly reported, adding transparency and notice requirements, enabling amicus in judicial review, constraining domestic/foreign information sharing with retention limits, mitigating compliance costs for smaller providers, clarifying key definitions, and mandating robust 5G security standards to align cybersecurity with accountability, human rights, and inclusivity.