Cyber law deserves careful scrutiny

For reasons more to do with politics than policy, the Government and Labor battled it out last week over the Coalition’s effort to push through its encryption legislation. The Telecommunications (Access and Assistance) Bill passed in Federal Parliament is designed to give security agencies and police access to messaging services such as Telegram, Signal or WhatsApp, which are currently encrypted. Australia’s spy agencies say the law change will help them track down potential terrorists and other bad guys. But the tech community has warned that giving spooks access to messaging apps is a step on the road to a Big Brother police state. They point out that authoritarian states, such as Russia and China, have taken the lead in demanding access to encrypted networks. The area is highly technical and it remains to be seen whether it is practically possible for direct messaging firms to open up their encryption services without compromising them completely. It may be illegal for them to co-operate under home country legislation. Because of that, the Coalition’s demand to pass this bill before Christmas risked looking like a political stunt.

This law will be watched closely elsewhere. It should be subject to careful scrutiny. Moreover, in the tech world there are always loopholes. Hardcore criminals may be able to exploit those, leaving them still more protected than the rest of us.