Australia passes world's first law authorizing encryption backdoors

Privacy advocates, technologists and businesses including Apple have criticized the Australian bill and similar proposals elsewhere, saying such a plan would introduce portals for government abuse and malicious hackers alike.

Australia’s Parliament on Thursday passed the world’s first law requiring technology companies to give law enforcement officials access to encrypted messages and communications.

The law authorizes police to compel companies to create a security vulnerability, often called a backdoor, that would give investigators access to an individual’s communication without that person’s knowledge. It marks a major milestone in the so-called “crypto wars” over the public’s ability to “go dark” via the powerful encryption available on commercial devices.

Authorities in Australia, U.S., and U.K. for years have argued such access is necessary to help police combat encryption in modern technology that protects them from traditional interception techniques. Privacy advocates, technologists and businesses including Apple have criticized the Australian bill and similar proposals elsewhere, saying such plans would introduce portals for government abuse and malicious hackers alike.

Companies that fail to obey the law risk being fined.

“This ensures that our national security and law enforcement agencies have the modern tools they need, with appropriate authority and oversight, to access the encrypted conversations of those who seek to do us harm,” said Christian Porter, Australia’s attorney general.

International officials who have pushed for their own measures now will watch the next phase of the “going dark” debate unfold in Australia.

“Once you’ve built the tools, it becomes very hard to argue that you can’t hand them over to the U.S. government, the U.K. – it becomes something they can all use,” Lizzie O’Shea, a human rights lawyer, told the New York Times this week.

O’Shea previously wrote in a Times editorial that other nations in Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance — made up of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S. — have pushed for Australia to “lead the charge” in finding a way to crack encrypted data. The country does not have a bill of rights, making it “a logical place to test new strategies” for breaching apps like WhatsApp and Signal.

“The truth is that there is simply no way to create tools to undermine encryption without jeopardizing digital security and eroding individual rights and freedoms,” she wrote. “Hackers with bad intentions will do their utmost to take advantage of any such tools that companies are forced to provide the government.”

Government

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure