Psiphon to exit Canada if Bill C-22 mandates provider-side surveillance changes

Psiphon, spun out of Citizen Lab in 2006, announced the relocation plan after reviewing Bill C-22 text. The bill compels providers to alter infrastructure for real-time access without user notification. Company leadership determined these changes would eliminate the no-logs architecture relied on by 20 million monthly users in Iran, Myanmar, Russia and China.

Citizen Lab deployment records show Psiphon traffic volumes exceeding 1.2 billion circumvention sessions in 2022, concentrated in jurisdictions with active censorship mandates. Comparable laws in Australia and the UK produced measurable drops in VPN provider density after similar access requirements took effect. No public Canadian government assessment quantifies the resulting reduction in available privacy tools.

Operational impact centers on trust erosion: any mandated backdoor voids the end-to-end guarantees that differentiate Psiphon from commercial VPNs. Regulators gain short-term monitoring capacity while long-term user migration to non-Canadian providers accelerates. Relocation timelines cited by the company place headquarters move within six months of royal assent.

Subsequent parliamentary review of C-22 remains scheduled for 2024, but no amendments addressing circumvention-tool exemptions have been tabled.