Current Events > Refusal to unlock electronics = 60k fine or 5 years in prison. Corps must comply

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yes I am aware Daily Mail is garbage, I have provided a link to the actual legislation below as well. DM did not get this one wrong. The last portion of what I quoted below is the most concerning for anyone using software/hardware that is shipped or distributed in Australia, if you read nothing in this article read that. The legislation has not yet passed.

Now the police want your passwords and you could be fined $60,000 or put in prison for five years if you refuse

People could face up to five years' in jail if they do not give their laptop password or mobile phone PIN to the authorities under proposed changes to the law.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton introduced the new laws to the Parliament, saying they are needed to help police and spies catch criminals who are hiding behind encryption technology.

But civil libertarians say the changes go too far.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said encryption hurt national security and hid crime

'The bill is a draconian measure to grant law enforcement authorities unacceptable surveillance powers that invade Australians' civil rights,' said Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm in an emailed statement to Daily Mail Australia.

'It appears that people who are not even suspected of committing a crime can face a fine of up to $50,000 and up to five years' imprisonment for declining to provide a password to their smart phone, computer or other electronic devices.'

The penalty unit fine is actually more than $50,000 as the value of a penalty unit has recently been increased to $210.

Civil libertarians are worried the new laws go too far towards making Australia a police state

Anybody who refuses to help the authorities crack a computer system when ordered will face up to five years jail.

If the crime being investigated is terrorism, the penalty for non-compliance is increased to 10 years' jail or $126,000.

If Parliament passes the bill, tech companies will have to help authorities crack the encryption on users devices when told to help - or face up to $10 million in fines.

If anybody at the company tells anybody that they have been told to do it, they will face up to five years' in jail.

Source/More Reading
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6213007/Police-want-mobile-laptop-passwords-jailed-refusing.html

Legislation:
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6195
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Australia has no freedom charter or anything like that does it?
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Cheater87 posted...

Australia has no freedom charter or anything like that does it?

Not that I know of, @DavidWong maybe knows?

BlueMage279 posted...

shit country

Unfortunately laws like this will impact every country.

It's what makes things like the EU trying to mandate piracy provisions so problematic. Things like this just ripple over to every other user in every other country.
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BlueMage279 posted...

shit continent

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up
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Awful.
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Seems like there's a huge market opportunity for off-site crypto storage now.

Nothing that guarantees freedoms constitutionally in Australia. But we don't really care
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Peter Dutton is a slimeball
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Isn't basically everything already stored on the cloud anyways? What does this change?
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Don't store sensitive data on the device, store it on some offshore encrypted cloud provider in a jurisdiction that doesn't have such laws. (Mega is safe for now, though if this is an Australian law, it is VERY likely NZ will follow suit within a few years.)

Alternatively, encrypted volume inside another encrypted volume, then you've got pretty good plausible deniability.
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land of the free range slave
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Australia seems like an overall shit place to live tbh
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DarkTransient posted...

Alternatively, encrypted volume inside another encrypted volume, then you've got pretty good plausible deniability.

Wasn't there a two-password crypto system, that opened the real content with one and bullshit content with another?

Wow
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I wonder what the market viability of a storage-corruption app would be...

Questionmarktarius posted...

DarkTransient posted...

Alternatively, encrypted volume inside another encrypted volume, then you've got pretty good plausible deniability.

Wasn't there a two-password crypto system, that opened the real content with one and bullshit content with another?

Probably, although that might be a bit easier to detect than multiple-level encrypted volumes.
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