Australian Government Ignores Experts in Advancing Its Anti-Encryption Bill
The Australian government has ignored the expertise of researchers, developers, major tech companies, and civil liberties organizations by charging forward with a disastrous proposal to undermine trust and security for technology users around the world.
On September 10, the Australian government closed the window for receiving feedback about its anti-encryption and pro-surveillance “Access and Assistance” bill. A little more than a week and more than 15,000 comments later, the Minister for Home Affairs introduced a largely-unchanged version of the bill into the House of Representatives.
The issue isn’t whether the Australian government read the 15,000 comments and ignored them, or refused to read them altogether. The issue is that the Australian government couldn’t have read the 15,000 comments in such a short time period. Indeed, the bill’s few revisions reflect this—no security recommendations are included.
