Bill C-2: Expanding The Scope Of Law Enforcement Powers To Obtain Subscriber Information And Other Data

For a summary of Bill C-2's proposal to enact provisions in the Criminal Code that will give law enforcement access to an individual's "subscriber information", including personal information, online unique identifiers and transmission data when using internet services, see our team's related client bulletin.

On June 3, 2025, Parliament introduced Bill C-2: An Act respecting certain measures relating to the security of the border between Canada and the United States and respecting other related security measures.¹ Bill C-2 proposes significant amendments to various statutes, including the Criminal Code, in respect of how subscriber information is defined and handled.

Key Amendments:

1. The introduction of a statutory definition of "subscriber information";
2. The expansion of law enforcement's ability to make demands for subscriber information and transmission data, among other things;
3. The ability to make demands of foreign service providers and
4. The expansion of investigative police powers where exigent circumstances exist.

In this post, we elaborate on these proposed legislative amendments and discuss potential implications.

Expanding the legal definition of "subscriber information"

Bill C-2 proposes to add a new definition of "subscriber information" in the Criminal Code. There is currently no definition of the term in the Criminal Code,but the Supreme Court has defined subscriber information as "the name, address, and telephone number" of a customer associated with a particular Internet Protocol (IP) address² and, more recently, as "the name, address, and contact information ... associated with an individual [IP] address."³

At common law, prior judicial authorization is necessary to obtain subscriber information, as "an IP...