In late 2018, on the final day of parliament for 2018, the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill passed both houses of Parliament and a mere three days later it received Royal assent and became law.
Since that date Australia has been criticised not only due to the mere existence of the law but also based on the scope and operation of that law and the perceived lack of consultation within industry.
Let’s all take a step back and look at the Assistance and Access Act, how it operates and how it came into existence.
Firstly, it must be stated that the Assistance and Access Act (Encryption Act) is not a blanket back door to allow access to law enforcement to access all devices. However, it does provide for a backdoor for some devices. This may be seen as a semantic word game, but it does provide some comfort overall.
The act applies to designated communication providers (DCPs) which include carriers, manufacturers of devices, entities that supply electronic services to consumers such as secure messaging applications and entities that provide services or software for use in connection with a carriage service or an electronic service. In short it affects everyone in the chain involved in the manufacture of devices and use of devices over any carriage service…Click here to read full article.
