The latest developments around Canada’s C-22 have reportedly forced a significant policy adjustment, with the Carney government described as backing down on a major point tied to large technology firms. According to the account sharing the update, a midnight committee amendment will ensure the government will not pursue efforts aimed at breaking encryption as part of the bill’s enforcement approach.
In practical terms, the change signals a retreat from a more confrontational direction that critics feared would pressure technology companies or legislative mechanisms toward undermining secure communications. Instead of seeking authorization or powers to weaken encryption, the revised direction described in the report suggests the government is shifting to a narrower set of tools that stop short of direct interference with encrypted data.
The headline focus of the report is the government’s decision not to seek encryption breaking within the scope of C-22, despite prior concerns that the bill could have enabled such outcomes. The claim is that negotiations and committee work culminated in an amendment introduced late at night—hence the dramatic “midnight committee amendment” framing—creating a more limited compliance outcome for big tech companies. Where encryption-breaking would have represented a major escalation in the relationship between the state and major platforms, the amendment reportedly removes that element.
However, the update also makes clear that the government is not rolling back all investigative capabilities associated with the bill. The report states that while encryption-breaking will not be pursued, the government will still pursue location tracking and microphone access. This means that, even with encryption kept intact, authorities may still gain tools that raise serious privacy implications for users.
The distinction matters. Encryption-breaking typically concerns the confidentiality of communications—whether companies or government processes can access the contents of messages or data that are protected by cryptographic safeguards. In contrast, location tracking and microphone access relate more to metadata and device-level surveillance. Even when message contents remain encrypted and secure against decryption attempts, location information can often be used to infer patterns of life, movements, contacts, and associations. Similarly, microphone access can potentially capture audio from a person’s surroundings, which introduces different, highly sensitive privacy risks.
By maintaining these capabilities while dropping the encryption-breaking component, the report suggests the government is attempting to balance public safety objectives with legal, technical, and political constraints. Large technology firms have long argued that encryption-breaking proposals would create systemic risks: any weakening could be exploited by criminals and could also affect ordinary users. The reported backdown may reflect the weight of those concerns during committee review.
At the same time, the continued emphasis on location tracking and microphone access indicates that the underlying bill is still designed to provide authorities with mechanisms for surveillance or investigation. The update implies a policy tradeoff: rather than attempting to defeat secure communications, the bill’s revised approach focuses on collecting information from devices and determining a user’s physical whereabouts, along with audio access under applicable legal authorities.
The update is framed as a breaking development, highlighting both the government’s change in direction and the persistence of intrusive powers. It also underlines the speed and intensity of the policy process, pointing to an amendment introduced at midnight—an approach often associated with last-minute negotiations and rapid drafting changes.
Overall, the story communicates that the Carney government has adjusted its position on C-22 in a way that limits direct attempts to break encryption, likely easing one major concern for privacy and security advocates and for big tech companies. Yet the bill’s remaining tools—location tracking and microphone access—remain significant, meaning the controversy does not end with the encryption change. Instead, the debate may shift to how these capabilities would be authorized, implemented, and constrained.
In sum, the report depicts a partial retreat: no encryption-breaking pursuit, but continued support for other surveillance-related measures. The balance of security, privacy, and corporate responsibility remains at the center of the unfolding discussion around C-22, with committee amendments playing a decisive role in shaping what the final law could authorize. Source: Tablesalt.
Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸: ‼️BREAKING‼️ Carney government BACKS DOWN to big tech in midnight committee amendment will NOT seek encryption breaking in C-22 however, location tracking and microphone access remain. #breaking
— @Tablesalt13 May 1, 2026
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