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An Anonymous Coward writes:

In the aftermath [abc.net.au] of the Australian government passing laws that allows the government to force companies and individuals to work with officials to bypass encryption scary implications of the new laws are being discovered. One very concerning effect is that officials can now force Australians to unlock their phone [news.com.au] granting the government full access to anyone's email history, personal files, pictures and other files on their phone. Senator Steele-John was quoted [twitter.com] as saying “Far from being a ‘national security measure’ this bill will have the unintended consequence of diminishing the online safety, security and privacy of every single Australian,”. With fines of up to $50,000 for individuals who refuse to hand over an unlocked device or cooperate with authorities new devices and software are expected to enter the market including dual OS devices, hidden partitions, encrypted files and partitions similar to TrueCrypt, cloud only applications, device wipe pins, secondary hidden OS functions and other security measures which so far have largely only been implemented on desktop computers. This latest bungle by the Australian government may very well propel mobile device security forward decades in the same way RIAA and MPAA advanced P2P.

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