The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production Orders) Bill 2020, introduced on 5 March, seeks to address Australia’s evolving technological landscape where data previously held in the country is now stored overseas.
Its Explanatory Memorandum states that Australian law enforcement and national security agencies need access to electronic and communications data from foreign communications providers for criminal investigations. Currently, the country has relied on mutual legal assistance from overseas jurisdictions, which it calls a “lengthy process”.
For requests received from foreign governments with a designated international agreement, the bill would remove the blocking provisions that prevent domestic communication providers and tech companies from cooperating with a request from a foreign government, when the request complies with the conditions of the designated international agreement.
By Justin Hendry on May 12, 2021 1:05AM
Budget 2021: Govt opens wallet ahead of election.
Government agencies have scored funding for a range technology projects, mostly aimed at improving service delivery, in this year’s pandemic recovery-fuelled and pre-election budget.
With most IT-related funding contained within the digital economy strategy announced ahead of time, distinctly fewer centrepiece initiatives were to be found on budget night than in previous years.
As revealed last week, the government will pour around half a billion dollars into myGov and the My Health Record system, as well as $54 million into a national AI centre, as part of a combined $1.2 billion package.
Richardson made dozens of recommendations for how such a new Act should work, and 203 recommendations in total.
It took an entire year for the government to respond, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic s impact on business, but eventually, in its formal response of December 2020, it agreed that such a reform was needed.
Indeed, the government agreed, or agreed in principle, to the vast majority of Richardson s unclassified recommendations. The central area for reform is a new electronic surveillance Act, which will be a new landmark in Australia s national intelligence legislation, the government wrote. A new electronic surveillance Act will be generational in its impact. This legislation will require careful and detailed consideration, with extensive public consultation, to establish a framework that will support Australia s intelligence collection and law enforcement agencies in the years to come.
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Coalition politicians who champion Donald Trump’s right to free speech have passed numerous laws making it a serious criminal offence to exercise this right in Australia. Labor parliamentarians have also helped pass laws criminalising speech that’s clearly in the public interest or simply innocuous.
When Prime Minister Scott Morrison was invited at a recent press conference to condemn far-right conspiracy theories promoted by government members such as George Christensen, he refused. He also defended another Liberal backbencher, Craig Kelly, who has undermined the government’s health message by spreading false information about COVID-19. At the time, Morrison said: “There’s such a thing as freedom of speech in this country and that will continue.”