Apple is fighting a Canadian bill that could force it to undermine encryption, teaming up with Meta in rare public opposition. 9to5Mac reported the companies are pushing back against legislation that would require them to “provide assistance” to law enforcement when accessing encrypted data.
This is the encryption debate again, just with a maple leaf. Governments want access to scrambled messages for criminal investigations. Tech companies say there’s no such thing as a backdoor that only the good guys can use. Apple’s position has been consistent since the San Bernardino iPhone case in 2016: build one weakness into encryption and you’ve built it for everyone—criminals, foreign governments, hackers, the lot.
Canada isn’t the first to try this. The UK’s Online Safety Bill, Australia’s Assistance and Access Act, and the EU’s proposed Chat Control all dance around the same idea: make tech companies help law enforcement read encrypted messages. Apple opposed those too. The company’s argument is technical, not philosophical: you cannot mathematically create a secure backdoor. Either the encryption works for everyone or it doesn’t work at all.
What’s interesting here is Meta joining the fight publicly. Meta’s had its own encryption struggles—WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, but the company has faced pressure to scan messages before encryption kicks in, which is backdoor-adjacent. Both companies know that if Canada succeeds, every other country will want the same carve-out. That’s how you end up with encryption that’s strong everywhere except the places where people actually need it to be strong.
Apple will probably win this round, or Canada will water down the bill until it’s toothless, but the fight isn’t going away—it just keeps moving to the next country with the next version of the same bad idea.
Reporting reference: 9to5Mac ↗