'No changes to our logging or privacy policies' — Windscribe reassures users on Canada's Bill C-22 fallout | Tech Radar

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'No changes to our logging or privacy policies' — Windscribe reassures users on Canada's Bill C-22 fallout

The Toronto-based VPN provider says complying with Canada's surveillance law is an internal problem, not a user-facing one

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Image credit: Pixabay (Image credit: Future + Windscribe + Anton Petrus/via Getty Images)

Windscribe said Bill C-22 won't change its privacy policies

The bill would require service providers to retain user metadata

Canada's Senate is set to discuss Bill C-22 in September

A Reddit user recently put a blunt question to Windscribe: is paying for a Canada-based VPN a privacy problem, given the surveillance bill working its way through Parliament?

The company's official support account answered without hedging. Windscribe will keep operating exactly as it has, the account said, with "no changes to our logging or privacy policies".

Canada is bringing in laws that genuinely complicate things for the company, Windscribe added, but that is internal work to sort out rather than something subscribers should expect to feel.

It's a calmer message than the one Windscribe was broadcasting in May, when it said it would sooner relocate its headquarters than start logging users. That put it alongside Signal and Nord VPN, and made it one of the sharpest voices among the best VPN providers fighting the bill.

Bill C-22, formally the Lawful Access Act, cleared the House of Commons on June 18 and now sits with the Senate, which won't begin its study until Parliament returns in September.

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Windscribe and Bill C-22: what the VPN provider said

Is paying for Windscribe a problem to privacy given they’re based in Canada and the likely upcoming Bill C-22? Would love to subscribe if not for this. from r/Windscribe

Pressed further in the thread, Windscribe drew a line between where the company is registered and where its infrastructure lives.

The incoming laws could see it served with a court order requiring it to start logging users, the support account acknowledged. Its answer is jurisdictional: a virtual private network (VPN) operating outside Canada doesn't have to comply with Canadian law.

That echoes the route the company has been signalling since May, when CEO Yegor Sak told the Globe and Mail he was actively exploring moving Windscribe out of the country.

Windscribe was also careful to separate provider obligations from user liability. No law currently stops Canadians from using a VPN, it pointed out, and the risk it describes only reaches customers if a provider stays put and starts logging traffic.

For anyone uneasy about the paper trail, Windscribe's suggestion was simple: pay in crypto, so neither the government nor a card issuer sees the purchase.

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Introduced in March by Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, Canada Bill C-22 would let the government compel electronic service providers to retain user metadata and build technical capabilities for law enforcement access.

The House passed it at third reading on June 18 after the government moved to limit debate, and the Senate is set to pick it up on September 21, according to Parliament's own LEGISinfo tracker.

Late amendments cut the maximum metadata retention period from twelve months to six and added a clause stating the act can't be read as compelling decryption, unless the provider already holds the keys.

Still, law professor Robert Diab argues that doesn't go far enough, since ministerial orders could still sweep up the metadata of people under no suspicion whatsoever.

The government has consistently rejected the surveillance framing, insisting the bill builds no backdoors and that authorities still need judicial authorisation to obtain data.

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Monica is a tech journalist with over a decade of experience. She writes about the latest developments in computing, which means anything from computer chips made out of paper to cutting-edge desktop processors.

GPUs are her main area of interest, and nothing thrills her quite like that time every couple of years when new graphics cards hit the market.

She built her first PC nearly 20 years ago, and dozens of builds later, she’s always planning out her next build (or helping her friends with theirs). During her career, Monica has written for many tech-centric outlets, including Digital Trends, Slash Gear, We PC, and Tom’s Hardware.

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