Australia: According to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), the powers given to two law enforcement authorities by three new warrants are “wide-ranging and coercive in nature.”
The new Surveillance Bill 2020, if passed, will hand the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) three new warrants to tackle cybercrime .
The first of the warrants is for data disruption , which according to the bill’s explanatory note, is intended to be used to prevent “ continuing criminal activity by participants and to be the safest and most convenient option when those participants are in unknown locations or acting under anonymous or false identities .”
The second is a network activity warrant that would allow the AFP and ACIC to collect information from devices used or likely to be used by those subject to the warrant.
The latest warrant concerns account takeover and will allow companies to take control of an account, while being able to lock an individual out of account .
“ The OAIC recognises the importance of empowered law enforcement agencies responding to serious cybercrime . However, the proposed powers in the Bill are wide-ranging and coercive in nature ,” the committee said
He said, for example, that in Australia, data and network activity interception warrants may allow entry into specific premises, removal of computers or data, and interception of communications.
“ These powers are likely to adversely affect the privacy of a large number of individuals, including individuals who are not suspected of involvement in criminal activity, and therefore must be subject to a careful and critical assessment of their necessity, reasonableness and proportionality ,” the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) said .
“Furthermore, given the impact of these law enforcement powers on privacy across a wide range of individuals and networks, they should be accompanied by appropriate privacy safeguards.“
The OAIC believes that the bill requires further consideration to better ensure that any adverse impacts on the privacy of individuals in Australia arising from these coercive powers are minimised and that additional privacy protections are included in primary legislation
Elsewhere, the commissioner called for the bill to be amended to allow only judicial oversight and approval of warrants issued under it. Among the recommendations is a mandate to destroy information within rejected warrants, as well as a requirement for agencies to review the usefulness of the information collected and take proactive steps to destroy it when it is no longer needed for the purposes of investigations.
