Displaying items by tag: Home Affairs

The Federal Government has opened a new centre to combat online crime, to be led by the Australian Federal Police, alongside a national plan to combat online crimes.

Existing methods to detect and nab cyber criminals are likely to be ineffective in the years ahead, judging from the projections of consulting firm PwC, the chairman of the digital identity provider VeroGuard claims.

The Federal Government has ignored the pleas of technology industry bodies and passed a bill that will enable it to take control of private infrastructure as a last resort in the event of a cyber attack.

In what is a snub to the technology industry at large, the Coalition Government has re-introduced the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 into parliament for a second reading, not long after three major tech industry bodies urged a significant revision of the bill before it is voted on.

A Senate panel chaired by Tasmanian Labor Senator Helen Polley has said it considers the proposed authorisation of coercive search powers for the Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission in a current bill — the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 — could unduly trespass on personal rights and liberties.

A review of Australia's intelligence agencies has recommended that the law governing the activities of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation should continue to distinguish between foreign intelligence and security intelligence.

A new biometric identity system built by Unisys and IDEMIA for the Home Affairs Department, for use in securing the country's borders, has gone live, the two companies who built the system say.

The Digital Transformation Agency claims that data from the government's COVIDSafe app will not be stored in data centres owned by Chinese interests.

An official from the Department of Home Affairs has been selected to lead the Australian Cyber Security Centre to replace Alastair MacGibbon who quit the post two weeks before the Federal Election in May.

The head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre, Alastair MacGibbon, has handed in his resignation a fortnight before the nation goes to the polls.

The Federal Government is yet to properly define in its encryption bill what a systemic weakness means, and the question came up more than once for discussion during the second hearing on the bill before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Security and Intelligence.

One of the curious aspects surrounding the Federal Government's encryption bill is why it took Australian firm Senetas — which has technology exports of at least a billion — so long to voice its objections to the draft legislation.

The Australian Information Industry Association has warned that the Federal Government's encryption bill would lead to overseas vendors withdrawing from the Australian market as they would not want their products to be caught in the government's dragnet.

The Australian Privacy Foundation says it is "seriously alarmed" about the weekend's report that the Australian Signals Directorate is trying to extend its powers to spy on Australian citizens.

Federal Minister for Home Affairs, Hon. Brendan O'Connor today announced a strikingly more adept solution to keeping kids safe online than yesterday's 'big red button' from Sen. Conroy.