A new proposal by the Australian government that would mandate its ability to access encrypted data held by companies both foreign and domestic has been met with fierce opposition from many in the privacy and technology communities.
The bill, known as the "Assistance and Access Bill 2018," seeks to overcome what American authorities have spent years calling the "going dark" problem. The notion, as Canberra explains it, is to enhance "the ability of our law enforcement and security agencies to access the intelligible data necessary to conduct investigations and gather evidence."
It would create a new type of warrant that would allow what governments often call "lawful access" to thwart encryption, something that the former Australian Attorney General proposed last year.
As the Department of Home Affairs outlined in a recent paper:
The Bill introduces a suite of measures that will improve the ability of agencies to access intelligible communications content and data. Three distinct reforms will help achieve this purpose:
1. Enhancing the obligations of domestic providers to give reasonable assistance to Australia's key law enforcement and security agencies and, for the first time, extending assistance obligations to offshore providers supplying communications services and devices in Australia.
2. Introducing new computer access warrants for law enforcement that will enable them to covertly obtain evidence directly from a device.
3. Strengthening the ability of law enforcement and security authorities to overtly access data through the existing search and seizure warrants.
The bill has been proposed by Angus Taylor, the minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber Security.
We cant afford to give terrorists and paedophiles a place to hide. Our new Assistance and Access Bill will modernise law enforcement and national security investigations in a digital age without requiring companies to weaken their systems. https://t.co/BXFK1HDOGG
— Angus Taylor MP (@AngusTaylorMP) August 14, 2018
Across the Pacific, the Department of Justice and the FBI have pushed for something similar for decades, to no avail—no specific legislation has been put forward in the United States since the failed "Clipper Chip" proposal during the Clinton administration. However, high-ranking DOJ and FBI officials during both the Obama and Trump administrations have continued to lambast this issue.
But, Australian experts say, this proposed law is a solution in search of a problem.
"There is no evidence to suggest that the problem is significantly worse in Australia than anywhere else," Adam Molnar, a lecturer in criminology at Deakin University in Australia, told Ars.
"They've legislated for more powers, and they have fewer constraints when it comes to substantive protections for human rights and privacy. Australian authorities enjoy wider legal remit to facilitate intelligence gathering and surveillance in criminal investigation than many other similar jurisdictions—including the US and Canada."
As the government explains, the proposal would impose fines of up to A$10 million for companies that do not comply and A$50,000 for individuals who do not comply.
Additionally, the proposed law would seemingly forbid companies from even talking about whether they were under legal pressure from the government to assist them. Put another way, if there was an "FBI v. Apple"-type situation in Australia under this law, hardly anyone would know about it.
There is no timetable for the bill's formal introduction into the Australian Parliament.
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Ars Technica
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