Omar Abdulaziz left Saudi Arabia in 2014, built a new life in Montreal and became one of the most prominent Saudi opposition voices outside the kingdom, as well as a close confidant of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In 2018 his phone was infected with Pegasus spyware, which was traced to a Saudi-linked operator and likely played a role in the chain of events that led to Khashoggi’s murder. Despite Abdulaziz seeking safety in Canada, his persecutors found him anyway.
Parliament is now moving quickly to pass Bill C-22, the so-called Lawful Access Act, which would make Canada more susceptible to exactly that kind of targeted surveillance. The bill is about giving Canadian law enforcement better tools to investigate serious crime by having telecom companies collect everyone’s metadata for six months and mandating the breaking of encryption. Despite the noble goal of empowering law enforcement to do its job, the risks of this approach outweigh the potential benefits.
