Australian gov’t wants to force tech firms to weaken crypto

Enlarge / Police attend the scene of a suspected murder on August 10, 2018 in Sydney, Australia. (credit: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images)

A new proposal by the Australian government that would mandate its ability to access encrypted data held by companies both foreign and domestic has been met with fierce opposition from many in the privacy and technology communities.

The bill, known as the "Assistance and Access Bill 2018," seeks to overcome what American authorities have spent years calling the "going dark" problem. The notion, as Canberra explains it, is to enhance "the ability of our law enforcement and security agencies to access the intelligible data necessary to conduct investigations and gather evidence."

It would create a new type of warrant that would allow what governments often call "lawful access" to thwart encryption, something that the former Australian Attorney General proposed last year.

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