Home Affairs attempts to allay concerns about Australian exporters for encryption-busting Bill

Source: ZD Net, 30/11/2018

`The Bill expressly says under the Technical Capability Notice
provisions that agencies cannot ask companies to build a
capability to remove one or more forms of electronic protection,`
Home Affairs Assistant Secretary Andrew Warnes told the
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS)
on Monday. `The Bill has already expressly ruled that out, so
that`s where they should be hanging their hats on.`
`If they don`t have the capability to do it now, we will not ask
them to build the capability to do it, so that`s their assurance.`
Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) Mike
Burgess said the compulsive nature of the proposed laws do not
apply overseas.
`Compulsive powers proposed under this legislation do not relate
to foreign intelligence, and therefore there is no grounds which
that technology is sold and used in other countries outside of
Australia,` Burgess said.
`Unlike other countries in the world that do have compulsive
powers that go outside their jurisdiction, this isn`t the case.`
On the potential for companies to pull out of Australia due to the
compulsion to help interception agencies, Burgess said it is a
matter for companies to decide which countries they do business
in.
`I think it would be unlikely that Apple would not want to sell
iPhones in Australia,` he said.
Earlier in the month, Australian security vendor Senetas said the
Bill would damage Australian reputations and trust, and endanger
billions of dollars of exports, as well as the jobs of people who
are dependent on that trade.
`With export values exceeding $3 billion, we face the real
prospect of sales being lost, exports declining, local companies
failing or leaving Australia, jobs in this industry disappearing,
and related technical skills deteriorating,` the company said.
Senetas further added that the Bill would introduce systemic
weaknesses into products and the internet as a whole, and should
be withdrawn.
Under the proposed law, Australian government agencies would be
able to issue three kinds of notices:
• Technical Assistance Notices (TAN), which are compulsory
notices for a communication provider to use an interception
capability they already have;
• Technical Capability Notices (TCN), which are compulsory
notices for a communication provider to build a new interception
capability, so that it can meet subsequent Technical Assistance
Notices; and
• Technical Assistance Requests (TAR), which have been
described by experts as the most dangerous of all.
Opening the hearing was Director-General of Security at the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Duncan Lewis,
who said the spy agency has cases where it wants to use the
proposed powers.
`I anticipate that ASIO would immediately seek to use this
legislation if and when it becomes available,` Lewis said.
Monday`s hearing was shifted forward due to requests from Prime
Minister Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to
have the legislation passed in this sitting fortnight.
`I would call on all members of the committee to do what they can
to deal with this matter in an expeditious way, because we do want
to arm the police with the ability to look at these encrypted
messages,` Dutton said last week.
Asked on Monday whether there are any specific threats that ASIO
needs the powers for, Lewis did not identify a threat, but instead
said there is a general increased threat over the Christmas
period.
Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus pointed out that even if the
legislation is rushed through Parliament, due to the Bill allowing
for a 28-day consultation period when a TCN is issued, it would be
nigh on impossible for ASIO to make use of all the provisions in
the Bill.
Dreyfus also put forward the idea of the PJCIS issuing an interim
report that waves through the proposed powers of agencies involved
in counter-terrorism, and producing another report for the rest of
the agencies with interception powers