r/privaussie • u/SprinklesDM • Nov 08 '23

Australia data encryption laws

Hi all,

Very new to the privacy space and am starting to my journey to degoogle myself and regain more privacy in this digital age. I have been swapping to E2EE services to protect my data by i have just realised that in 2018 a law allowing law enforcement bodies to require companies to hand over user information, even if it's end-to-end encrypted.

SO is privacy and E2EE a waste of time in Australia?

Article about the law https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-46463029

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

1

u/fossilesque- May 07 '24

I think this mostly just rules out using secure web services based in Australia.

Signal for example, as an American company, has no obligation to comply with the Australian government's demands. Their primary recourse would be banning Signal which, touch wood, isn't happening.

1

u/PROPHET-EN4SA Nov 07 '24

Even if they did ban Signal there would be plenty of ways to get it still, especially on Android with APKs.

1

u/PROPHET-EN4SA Nov 07 '24

Services hosted in Australia will need to obey that law, but outside services can tell our government straight up no. For example, Session, a private messenger originally hosted here has now moved to the EU for more privacy laws.

So if you use a service such as Signal, like another commenter said, our government can request for data but in no way can force them to hand over data. And since Signal is E2EE, they would literally just say how bout no