The Liberal government's second attempt at giving police and spies easier access to Canadians' information includes what's anticipated to be costly demands on a range of private businesses to to change how they manage their data.

But the government says it doesn't yet know how much the companies — or Canadian taxpayers — would have to pay.

"The costs are potentially huge," said Michael Geist, the University of Ottawa’s Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, and a vocal critic of the bill.

"That has competition-related effects in terms of who bears those costs. Will they exempt certain providers? It gets very messy very quickly."