Do You Really Own Your Phone?
How Google’s latest power grab threatens Canada’s digital freedom
The promise of Android
I’ve always believed Android’s greatest promise is freedom. The freedom to do anything I want on my phone, to install anything I want, to customize it however I want. I can install apps that Google might not approve of, random experiments from GitHub, or even build my own app and share it freely with others without needing anyone’s permission.
While everyone else was using Apple’s closed walled garden ecosystem, I enjoyed having real control over my device. I could change what it did, how it looked, and what software it ran.
I had the power to customize my phone, truly. To install whatever I wanted, no permission required.
But that freedom, the thing that made Android what it is for so many of us, feels like it’s starting to slip away.
From open source to gatekeeping
After years of litigation, Google finally lost a landmark antitrust case against Epic Games. The Supreme Court refused to grant Google a stay, meaning the ruling now takes effect later this month. The decision forces Google to open Android to rival app stores and make it easier for users to install apps without going through Google Play. It was a long-awaited defeat of Google’s gatekeeping and monopoly control, and a major win for fair competition and digital rights.
Yet just as that ruling takes effect, Google announced a new developer verification policy that could undermine it entirely. Beginning in 2026, every Android app developer will need to share government-issued ID with Google for “verification.” Without it, their apps will not install on Android devices at all, even when distributed outside the Play Store.
On paper, this is framed as a security measure. In practice, it risks becoming a powerful new form of control. If developers who build their own stores or distribute apps independently must still get Google’s approval first, then Android’s open ecosystem becomes open only to those who comply with Google’s rules.
Independent app stores like F-Droid, which distribute free and open-source software, have already warned that this policy could make their model impossible. So have developers who rely on anonymous or collective publishing, such as ad blockers, privacy-focused apps, academics, small studios, and indie developers. The survival of a commons built by thousands of volunteers and small teams is at stake.
Europe leads on digital freedom
In Europe, the Digital Markets Act gives people a legal right to install software and use alternative app stores on their devices, subject only to proportionate safety checks.
Under Article 6(4), gatekeeper app stores must make apps accessible through alternative sources such as third-party marketplaces or developer websites rather than only through their own store. The Act also prohibits tying an operating system to a single store (Article 5(8)) and requires access to essential platform services on fair and non-discriminatory terms.
Europe has effectively codified digital choice into law, recognizing it as essential to both fair competition and democratic control over technology. It treats software ecosystems as public infrastructure that should serve citizens, not private monopolies.
Canada’s missing digital sovereignty
As Europe moves forward, Canada stands still.
Amid ongoing trade tensions with the United States, “digital sovereignty” has become a favourite buzzword of our Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon, who has identified it as a pillar of Canada’s AI strategy. But so far, that framing focuses narrowly on who owns our data centres, who trains our models, and where our data is stored. Those are important questions, but too often “sovereignty” is invoked to defend industries rather than empower people. It has become a slogan to justify corporate subsidies and national tech champions, most recently through the federal government’s $240-million partnership with Cohere to embed its AI models in public services.
If sovereignty is to mean anything beyond protectionism that replaces foreign monopolies with domestic ones, it must include the rights of citizens. True digital sovereignty belongs to people, not corporations or governments. It starts with the simple question of who decides what runs on our devices.
Because if Canadians do not control the technology in their own hands, it does not matter where the servers are.
Beyond right-to-repair: the right to install
Under recent updates to the Copyright Act (C-244 and C-294), exceptions were introduced for repair, diagnosis, and interoperability, allowing users and third parties to bypass certain technical protection measures when repairing or interoperating with a device.
But those changes are only a first step, since they allow hardware repair and limited interoperability, yet users still cannot freely reinstall or install new software. Canada should go further by recognizing a “right to install” that guarantees people the freedom to run lawful software from any source while maintaining reasonable security checks for malware or fraud.
Such a right would strengthen competition, support open-source innovation, and protect users from vendor lock-in disguised as safety. It would also align Canada with global best practices, including the Digital Markets Act’s commitment to device neutrality, the principle that users should be able to install, remove, and run software freely on the devices they own without undue restriction by gatekeeper platforms or manufacturers. Yet Canada still lacks laws that address these barriers, leaving control of our devices in the hands of dominant platforms.
A right to repair without a right to install is like being allowed to fix your tools but forbidden from choosing how to use them. If we believe people have the right to repair what they own and make their tools work together, then it follows that they must also have the right to decide what software runs on them.
Where to go from here
Parliament and regulators should examine how operating-system gatekeeping shapes competition, innovation, and public access to technology. The Competition Bureau now has new powers to investigate abuse of dominance and clarify when “security” is used as a pretext for control. Lawmakers should go further by establishing a statutory right for Canadians to install lawful software on the devices they own.
Canada must treat digital infrastructure as a public utility and ensure it is governed in the public interest, not shaped by private profit or foreign influence.
When control over software distribution rests with a handful of corporations, our collective ability to create, connect, and communicate depends on their permission.
Reclaiming digital freedom
The promise of technology, has always been that it empowers people. It lets us create, collaborate, and express ourselves without needing permission from anyone. That is what Android once represented: a platform built on openness, cooperation, and the belief that innovation can come from anywhere.
When I write code, when I tinker with my phone, when I install an open-source app built by someone halfway across the world, that is what freedom feels like in the digital age. It is the same spirit that built the early internet and inspired generations of creators and developers.
We are losing that spirit, one “security update” at a time. Every new restriction, every added layer of verification, moves power further away from people and closer to the corporations that profit from them.
Canada has a choice to make: we can follow the path of least resistance and let Silicon Valley write the rules for us, or we can reclaim collective agency and write them ourselves.
Recognizing a right to install the software we choose would be a small but meaningful step toward that goal and a reminder that technology should serve people, not profit.