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In August last year, the AFP obtained a warrant under section 3LA of the Crimes Act to unlock a gold-coloured Samsung phone found in the centre console of the man’s car when he was pulled over and searched.
The man supplied the password for a laptop also in the car, and a second phone did not have a pin to unlock, but when asked about the gold phone, he answered “no comment” and would not provide a password for the phone.
He later claimed it wasn’t his phone and he didn’t know the password to access it.
The federal court last month overturned the magistrate’s decision to grant a warrant forcing the man to provide assistance in unlocking the phone.
The decision was overturned on several grounds, notably judge Richard White found that the Samsung phone was not a computer or data storage device as defined by the federal Crimes Act.
The law does not define a computer, but defines data storage devices as a “thing containing, or designed to contain, data for use by a computer”.
White found that the phone could not be defined as a computer or data storage device.
“While a mobile phone may have the capacity to ‘perform mathematical computations electronically according to a series of stored instructions called a program’, it does not seem apt to call such an item a computer,” he said.
“Mobile phones are primarily devices for communicating although it is now commonplace for them to have a number of other functions ... Again, the very ubiquity of mobile phones suggests that, if the parliament had intended that they should be encompassed by the term ‘computer’ it would have been obvious to say so.”
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 21 2019, @07:50AM (3 children)
Update it.
Or even better, formulate it in a way that you don't depend on the current state of technology. If someone finds a way to murder with the use of a smartphone, we don't get into trouble, applying the law because those people who made murder laws thankfully didn't provide a definitive list of methods use of which would imply murder. Instead they concentrated on the intents and effects of the act.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 21 2019, @02:03PM (2 children)
Great. Then if you are busted they can take your fridge.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 21 2019, @02:17PM (1 child)
Sorry, I cannot see any logical path from my statement to your "conclusion".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday August 21 2019, @06:12PM
Smart fridge. A teenager used one to post to Twitter in an article earlier.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?