<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/25/after-pushback-from-service-providers-australian-regulators-strip-encryption-breaking-demands-from-online-safety-bill/>
"Yet another attempt to mandate broken encryption has been disrupted. The
Australian government has long held the belief that broken encryption would be
a net win for citizens. Or, at the very least, it’s pretty sure it will be a
huge win for law enforcement, which won’t have to deal with encrypted
communications or devices.
But, despite declaring only criminals need encryption, proposals to expand the
government’s power to include direct regulation of encryption have met with
significant pushback. Its efforts began more than a half-decade ago but — after
folding in horrible proposals by the UK government and the EU Commission — got
a bit worse in recent years.
The new idea was called “client-side scanning.” The aim was to give the
government access to illegal content passed around via encrypted services.
Since the government wasn’t willing to simply declare encryption illegal, it
passed the buck. New regulations would require service providers to undermine
the encryption they offered their users, stripping one of the end-to-end
encryption so communications can be monitored.
Fortunately, like elsewhere in the world, unified opposition to
encryption-breaking mandates has resulted in the Australian government rolling
back that particular demand in the final (or so they say) version of its online
safety standards."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
