Juha Saarinen: Encryption is not a criminals-only tool
11 May, 2021 07:00 AM
5 minutes to read
Encryption isn t going away. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
On Friday last week, a quote from a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into surveillance laws by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) made me do a double-take: ACIC observation shows there is no legitimate reason for a law-abiding member of the community to own or use an encrypted communications platform.
That s one hell of a broad and sweeping statement for ACIC to make at a time when ransomware attacks and aggressive hacking campaigns and privacy violations proliferate.
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Tue, May 11th 2021 10:44am
Tim Cushing
Well, someone finally said the quiet part loud: some government officials actually believe the only people who need, want, or use encryption are criminals. Here s Asha Barbaschow with the encryption is for criminals news at ZDNet.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) believes there is no legitimate reason for a law-abiding member of the community to own or use an encrypted communication platform. These platforms are used almost exclusively by SOC [serious and organised crime] groups and are developed specifically to obscure the identities of the involved criminal entities and enable avoidance of detection by law enforcement, the ACIC declared. They enable the user to communicate within closed networks to facilitate highly sophisticated criminal activity .
Filed to:acic
Image: Getty
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The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) says there’s no justifiable reason why a law-abiding citizen would need to use an encrypted communication platform like Signal, Telegram or ProtonMail
In a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) as part of the inquiry into the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020, the ACIC asserted that encrypted messaging services are “almost exclusively” used for illegal activity, which is simply not true.
The federal government is quietly preparing a raft of laws that would fundamentally change how technology is used in Australia. These wide-ranging digital reforms include everything from giving an unelected government official the right to censor apps and websites, to giving senior police the power to sign warrants that would allow them to take over your social media accounts.
Here are the biggest things happening right now in Australia’s tech law space:
The Online Safety Bill
Touted as a way to keep Australians safe online, the Online Safety Bill will overhaul the role of Australia’s eSafety commissioner.
The bill would drastically increase the commissioner’s powers, including giving them the ability to order the removal of online abuse, force web services and app stores to remove access to websites or apps, and unilaterally enforce verification systems for example, a face scan before users look at age-restricted material (i.e. porn).