Increased Powers for Federal Surveillance
Posted on: Fri 10 Sep 2021
At the end of last week, the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill came into effect.
The bill increases the warrant powers of federal police, allowing them to modify, add, copy, and delete data if they believe it will prevent serious digital crimes. It also gives them the power to take over online accounts of people they suspect are involved in crime to gather evidence for investigations.
Since the bill was first proposed in December 2020, the bill has received 33 recommendations including from the Law Council of Australia and human rights groups, but most of these recommendations were ignored without any significant changes to the proposed bill.
Kieran Pender, a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, joins Breakfast’s Tom Mann to discuss what the bill means for Australia and our security online.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Produced by Shannon Pearce
