Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020. Australians use the internet every day. What was once a novelty that required the painstaking task of using dial-up has, with each passing year, become more and more intertwined with our daily lives. While most of us use the internet for work or to watch Netflix, chat with friends and loved ones, shop online, listen to music or for online work-outs—something I admit to doing during lockdown!—we know that there is a nefarious side to the internet, an underbelly out of sight to most of us. The dark web is not something many of us would know how to access. It refers to areas of the internet which are intentionally hidden and cannot be accessed without using specialised browsers, primarily the Onion Router. Like the deep web, these areas are not indexed by ordinary search engines. Many of the sites on the dark web which are of concern to law enforcement, including forums and marketplaces dedicated to criminal activity, are hosted anonymously. In conjunction with specialised browsers, people often access the dark web using anonymising technologies such as virtual private networks, or VPNs, and use cryptocurrencies for transactions to ensure their true identities and locations remain obscured.

We know the dark web and the use of anonymising technologies is widespread among the transnational serious and organised crime groups. We saw, through Operation Ironside, that organised crime groups actively used the encrypted chat rooms Anom. To date, as at 1 August 2021, Operation Ironside in Australia has resulted in 696 search warrants being executed, 290 offenders charged, 728 charges laid, 139 weapons or firearms seized, 4,784 kilograms of drugs seized and $49 million in cash seized. We know that law enforcement's continuing challenge, post Ironside, will be combatting serious crime facilitated using anonymising and encrypted technologies, where the identities of those involved in criminal activity are increasingly hidden. We must remember that it was only through a unique set of circumstances that law enforcement had access to those Anom encrypted chats.

This bill introduces three powers that will substantially boost the capacity of the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, or ACIC, to fight cyberenabled serious crime. Network activity warrants will enable the AFP and the ACIC to collect intelligence on the most harmful criminal networks operating online, including on the dark web and when using anonymising technologies. Data disruption warrants will enable the AFP and the ACIC to disrupt serious criminality online, authorising the AFP and the ACIC to modify data belonging to individuals suspected of criminal activity to frustrate the commission of serious offences, such as the distribution of child exploitation material. And account takeover power will enable the AFP and the ACIC to take control of a person's online account for the purposes of gathering evidence about criminal activity, to be used in conjunction with other investigative powers.

I recognise that these powers are extraordinary, and the government has amended this bill to strengthen the conditions, oversight and transparency for when and how these important new powers can be used. The amendments in this bill address recommendations made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, in line with their advisory report into the bill. These balance the need for safeguards and proportionality whilst preserving the operational effectiveness of the new powers. In particular, the amendments introduce statutory review and sunsetting requirements for the powers contained in the bill; require that additional matters such as privacy and the seriousness of offences be more explicitly considered by an issuing authority before a warrant may be issued; ensure certain warrants are only able to be applied for following approval by a sufficiently senior officer within the AFP and the ACIC; and change key definitions in the bill to restrict the circumstances in which the warrants could be issued.

Whilst we must ensure there are appropriate safeguards and that there is proportionality, we must not lose sight of why the government has introduced this bill. As the PJCIS noted in their advisory report:

… the threat environment from serious cyber-enabled crime is severe and Australian authorities do not currently have the tools to address the threat. It is international, complex, and technologically advanced.

We know that the dark web increasingly hosts large-scale, complex and anonymous platforms and services frequently used to facilitate the most serious of crimes, including child sexual abuse, drugs and firearms trafficking, extremist content and sale of stolen identification documents. In particular, the hosting, sharing and distributing of child abuse material is increasingly occurring on dark web hidden services where the true IP addresses, location and jurisdiction of both users and services are hidden. Online child exploitation is vile. From working with victims of child sexual abuse and seeing the lifelong trauma it has on individuals, I can tell you that it leaves a lifelong effect on people.

We also know just how difficult it is to investigate in this online environment, as secure technologies such as streaming services and pay-per-view, the anonymity of the dark web and less traceable payment systems such as cryptocurrencies all make it increasingly difficult to track offenders. That is why powers like the account takeover warrant and the data disruption warrant, which would authorise the AFP and the ACIC to disrupt activities such as the sharing of child abuse images, are so necessary. As it stands, law enforcement agencies rely on a combination of powers that each provide a partial picture of online criminality by permitting electronic surveillance of aspects of communications traffic, content data and telecommunications data.

We know that more must be done to provide law enforcement with effective powers of response in the fight against cyberenabled crime. In the fast-evolving space of cybercrime, where criminals continue to find new and advanced ways to avoid detection, this bill is about further providing our law enforcement agencies with the tools that they need to keep us safe, to keep children safe, to disrupt drug dealers, to identify extremists and to put an end to organised crime. I commend this bill to the House.

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