After a string of high-profile incidents involving online blackmail, Canada’s Conservative government is pushing the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act (Bill C-13) as a tool to enable citizens to limit the spread of their own explicit photos. Despite strong initial support, the new bill is raising the ire of privacy advocates who claim that it contains many of the same data-snooping provisions as the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, a controversial proposal that was withdrawn last year after widespread public opposition to the powers it granted law enforcement for viewing private communications.

The language of Bill C-13 makes it illegal to share sexual images with a third party without the original sender’s permission — a proposal that garners near-unanimous support from parliament and the public. However, the bill has also fallen under heavy scrutiny for attached provisions that would make it easier for vaguely defined “public officers” or “peace officers” to access data from internet or cellphone providers without a warrant. It also gives telecommunication companies legal immunity if they choose to provide public officers with a person’s data, regardless of the reasoning provided for the information request.

While the government has moved quickly to distance the new proposal from the widely criticized Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, critics of C-13 describe the differences as largely semantic. “I think that the people who drafted this bill did not do so with cyber sexual assault survivors in mind,” says Women in Toronto Politics founder Steph Guthrie, who testified before the House of Commons regarding the bill. “[…] This issue was capitalized on in a way that I believe was opportunistic.”

Canadian public figures have been vocally calling for increased protection for victims of cyber-bullying and revenge porn since a string of high-profile teen suicides in 2013. The deaths of 17-year-old Rehteah Parsons and 15-year-old Amanda Todd, both of whom were cyber-bullied by strangers and their peers, has propelled the issue into public debate and provided new impetus for government legislation.

Todd’s story hit the news in 2012 when she posted a video that detailed how a webcam session in the 7th grade resulted in sexual images her being circulated online a year later. A 35-year old man from the Netherlands was arrested in April 2014 for coercing the images from Todd and harassing her afterward. Parsons was tormented online after photos of her apparent rape by four classmates were distributed at her school.

Despite the popularity of new laws addressing online harassment, the inclusion of the telecom immunity provision has led some to worry that the bill will fail to attract the votes needed to pass. Prominent voices are calling for the bill to be split in two: one bill to deal with cyber-bullying and revenge porn, and (a less popular) follow-up to deal with data access provisions. Advocates for the splitting of the bill include the Canadian Bar Association, which condemned the ‘bundling’ in a scathing report, and influential Executive Director of OpenMedia.ca Steve Anderson.

In a June 3 submission to the standing committee on justice and human rights, Anderson wrote, “I recommend that this committee remove the telecom immunity and weakened warrant standards provisions, while adding new reporting and accountability measures to this bill. I also want to join the growing numbers calling for you to split the bill up so that we can move the cyberbullying portion forward and have a proper debate on lawful access legislation.”

Surprisingly, even Harper’s recent pick for Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has come out in favor of splitting the bill. Speaking before a parliamentary commission, Therrien said that “[…] the bill should be divided and […] there should be an independent review of privacy interests in the context of electronic investigations,” according to the CBC.

Further heightening privacy concerns is the recent revelation that, in one year, the Canadian federal government made about 1.2 million warrantless requests to telecommunication companies for data. This represents roughly one request for every thirty-five Canadians. In 2011, these requests were complied with by telecom companies over 780 000 times.

To date, Justice Minister Peter MacKay has insisted that the bill will proceed in its current form.

Janna Bryson is a student and journalist based in Montreal. Follow her on Twitter.

For more news and opinion on Bill C-13, click here.