Australia's promised “not-a-backdoor” crypto-busting bill is out and the government has kept its word - it doesn't want a backdoor, just the keys to your front one.
The draft of The Assistance and Access Bill 2018 calls for anyone using or selling communications services in Australia will be subject to police orders for access to private data.
That includes all vendors of computers, phones, apps, social media and cloud services in the Lucky Country, and anyone within national borders using them. These data-tapping orders will be enforced with fines of up to AU$10m (US$7.3m) for companies or $50,000 ($36,368) for individuals
The draft legislation also wants five years in prison for anyone who reveals a data-slurping investigation is going on. And while there's no explicit encryption backdoor requirements in the 110 page draft bill, our first look suggests there doesn't need to be.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by arslan on Wednesday August 15 2018, @12:14AM
The claim TFS doesn't seem to match the bill itself. Reading through it, all it is proposing is companies that have the ability to decrypt must assist law enforcement. There was an explicit paragraph that states it is not about making companies design back-doors into their solutions, i.e. design new solutions that allow decryption - it is about where the design does allow the company to decrypt or if they design something new that actually has the capability for them to decrypt they must assist law enforcement.