A Surveillance Treaty in Disguise: Canada Signs UN Cybercrime Convention
A Surveillance Treaty in Disguise: Canada Signs UN Cybercrime Convention
伪装下的监控条约：加拿大签署联合国《打击网络犯罪公约》
July 23, 2026 2026年7月23日
Last week, the government announced that Canada has signed the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, with Ministers Anita Anand, Gary Anandasangaree and Sean Fraser touting the treaty’s child protection provisions and human rights safeguards, which were described as “among the strongest found in an international criminal justice treaty.” 上周，加拿大政府宣布已签署《联合国打击网络犯罪公约》。部长安妮塔·阿南德（Anita Anand）、加里·阿南达桑加里（Gary Anandasangaree）和肖恩·弗雷泽（Sean Fraser）大力宣传该条约中的儿童保护条款和人权保障措施，称其为“国际刑事司法条约中最强有力的条款之一”。
The announcement, released in mid-July with few paying attention, left out much of the story. The reality is that the convention is not primarily a cybercrime treaty at all, but rather a sweeping cross-border surveillance and electronic evidence-sharing agreement that Canada originally opposed, that leading human rights groups and twenty Canadian organizations and experts urged the government to reject, and that key allies have thus far declined to sign. 这份在7月中旬发布、几乎未引起关注的公告遗漏了许多关键背景。事实是，该公约本质上并非一份打击网络犯罪的条约，而是一项覆盖面极广的跨境监控与电子证据共享协议。加拿大最初曾对此表示反对，领先的人权组织以及二十家加拿大机构和专家也曾敦促政府拒绝签署，且目前仍有关键盟友拒绝加入。
While signing the convention does not create binding obligations (that requires ratification), the decision to sign a treaty that the government declined to sign at the official ceremony less than a year ago raises troubling questions. This post seeks to answer three of them: what is this treaty, what are the risks, and what, if anything, changed in the last nine months? 虽然签署公约并不直接产生法律约束力（这需要后续批准），但政府在不到一年前拒绝参加正式签署仪式，如今却决定签署，这一举动引发了令人不安的质疑。本文旨在回答三个问题：该条约究竟是什么？它存在哪些风险？过去九个月里发生了什么变化？
The treaty began as a Russian initiative in 2017, designed to displace the Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention, the longstanding cybercrime framework that Russia refuses to join. When the UN General Assembly voted in 2019 to launch negotiations, Canada joined the United States and European Union in opposing the resolution, warning that the process was a vehicle for expanding state surveillance powers. 该条约始于2017年俄罗斯的一项倡议，旨在取代欧洲委员会的《布达佩斯公约》——即俄罗斯拒绝加入的长期网络犯罪框架。当联合国大会在2019年投票启动谈判时，加拿大与美国和欧盟一道反对该决议，警告称这一进程是扩大国家监控权力的工具。
Having lost that vote, the democracies faced an uncomfortable choice: boycott the negotiations and let Russia, China, and Iran write the rules, or engage from within and try to limit the damage. They chose engagement with Canada among the most active delegations pressing for human rights safeguards. The strategy succeeded in keeping the authoritarian bloc’s wish list of speech and content crimes out of the final text before the convention was adopted by consensus in December 2024. 在投票失败后，民主国家面临一个艰难的选择：抵制谈判，任由俄罗斯、中国和伊朗制定规则；或者参与其中，试图减少损害。他们选择了参与，加拿大是推动人权保障措施最积极的代表团之一。这一策略成功地将威权集团关于言论和内容犯罪的“愿望清单”排除在最终文本之外，该公约于2024年12月达成共识并获得通过。
Yet despite limiting the damage, Canada was a no-show at the signing ceremony in Hanoi last October, joined by the U.S., New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Signatories included Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, and the European Union. Canada issued a statement that emphasized the treaty’s success “rests on states’ commitment to full application of the human rights safeguards in the text.” Nine months later, the government signed without explaining what had changed. 然而，尽管减少了损害，加拿大还是缺席了去年10月在河内举行的签署仪式，一同缺席的还有美国、新西兰、日本、荷兰、意大利、挪威、丹麦和芬兰。签署国包括俄罗斯、中国、伊朗、朝鲜、白俄罗斯、古巴、委内瑞拉和沙特阿拉伯，以及英国、澳大利亚、法国、德国和欧盟。加拿大当时发表声明强调，该条约的成功“取决于各国对文本中人权保障措施的全面应用”。九个月后，政府在未解释任何变化的情况下签署了该条约。
Canada’s previous concern with the treaty is well placed. While it enumerates a list of cybercrime offences, its procedural powers apply to electronic evidence of any criminal offence, and its international cooperation obligations extend to any “serious crime,” defined as any offence punishable by four or more years’ imprisonment under domestic law. Since some states impose such penalties for criticism of the government, journalism, blasphemy, or same-sex relationships, the treaty effectively converts repressive domestic laws into triggers for cross-border evidence gathering. 加拿大此前对该条约的担忧是有道理的。虽然它列举了一系列网络犯罪，但其程序性权力适用于任何刑事犯罪的电子证据，且其国际合作义务涵盖任何“严重犯罪”，即根据国内法可判处四年或以上监禁的任何罪行。由于一些国家对批评政府、新闻报道、亵渎神明或同性关系施加此类惩罚，该条约实际上将压制性的国内法转化为了跨境收集证据的触发器。
Further, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch and a coalition of leading digital rights groups have all warned that the convention functions as a global surveillance pact since it requires states to establish real-time interception and data collection powers while leaving out safeguards such as prior judicial authorization to the discretion of domestic law, permitting gag orders on cooperation requests, and omitting a political offence exception. 此外，电子前沿基金会（EFF）、人权观察组织以及多个领先的数字权利组织联盟均警告称，该公约实际上是一份全球监控协议。因为它要求各国建立实时拦截和数据收集权力，却将预先司法授权等保障措施留给国内法裁量，允许对合作请求实施禁言令，并遗漏了政治犯罪豁免条款。
In December 2024, nearly two dozen Canadian organizations and experts, including Amnesty International Canada, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, PEN Canada, OpenMedia, and the Citizen Lab’s Ron Deibert and Kate Robertson, issued a detailed letter urging the government not to sign. The letter warned that the treaty would create a standing channel for transnational repression targeting diaspora communities in Canada and explained how the convention could subvert the safeguards built into Canada’s mutual legal assistance framework. 2024年12月，包括加拿大国际特赦组织、刑事律师协会、加拿大笔会、OpenMedia以及公民实验室（Citizen Lab）的罗恩·戴伯特（Ron Deibert）和凯特·罗伯逊（Kate Robertson）在内的近二十家加拿大机构和专家发表了一封详细信函，敦促政府不要签署。信中警告称，该条约将为针对加拿大侨民社区的跨国镇压建立一个常设渠道，并解释了该公约如何破坏加拿大司法互助框架中内置的保障措施。
Robertson has separately warned that the treaty is poised to become a vehicle for complicity in the mercenary spyware trade, while over 120 security researchers cautioned that its offences threaten to criminalize good-faith security research. Despite the concerns, the government has said nothing, with no public consultation preceding the signature and none of the letter’s concerns addressed in the announcement. 罗伯逊还单独警告称，该条约可能成为助长雇佣间谍软件交易的工具，而超过120名安全研究人员则警告称，其犯罪定义威胁到将善意的安全研究定为刑事犯罪。尽管存在这些担忧，政府却保持沉默，签署前未进行任何公众咨询，公告中也未回应信中提出的任何关切。
So what changed and why sign now? It is not clear that anything has changed and the concerns that animated Canada’s decision to not sign nine months ago are still there. One theory is that this is linked to lawful access. Indeed, the treaty and the lawful access agenda are mutually reinforcing, since ratification will require implementing legislation featuring precisely the expanded production orders and cross-border data sharing powers found in Bill C-22. 那么，到底发生了什么变化？为什么要现在签署？目前尚不清楚有任何实质性改变，九个月前促使加拿大决定不签署的担忧依然存在。一种理论认为这与“合法访问”（lawful access）有关。事实上，该条约与“合法访问”议程是相互促进的，因为批准该条约将需要实施相关立法，而这些立法恰恰包含了C-22法案中提到的扩大调取令（production orders）和跨境数据共享权力。
Lawful access was already a source of concern, and this only makes it worse. Canada already has the Budapest Convention and bilateral treaties covering cooperation with the countries it wants to work with, meaning the new convention’s marginal value lies chiefly in cooperation with the very states, including Russia, China, and Iran, that create its greatest risks. The entire decision, including signing in the middle of the summer when few are paying attention, is deeply troubling and requires far more than a sunny press release that avoids the hard questions the treaty raises. “合法访问”本身已令人担忧，而此举只会让情况恶化。加拿大已经拥有《布达佩斯公约》以及与意向合作国家签署的双边条约，这意味着新公约的边际价值主要在于与那些造成最大风险的国家（包括俄罗斯、中国和伊朗）进行合作。整个决策过程，包括在夏季人们疏于关注时进行签署，都令人深感不安，这需要的不仅仅是一份回避条约所引发尖锐问题的乐观新闻稿。