Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Lambie, I couldn't quite properly hear what you were saying. I'll take you through what the purpose of the bill is, and that may well answer the question that you have posed. This is all about, as I said, part of the government's response to the challenges posed by anonymising technologies and cyber-enabled crime such as offending perpetrated on the dark web. I'll briefly summarise what the bill does, in three parts. It enhances the ability of the AFP and the ACIC to identify and disrupt. It's all about serious crime online. In that regard, data disruption warrants authorise the deletion or modification of data—the examples that I previously gave were things such as child exploitation material—to frustrate the commission of serious offences online. Network activity warrants enable the AFP and the ACIC to collect intelligence on criminal networks operating online. Account takeover warrants allow law enforcement to take control of online accounts in order to gather evidence about a person's online criminality and the activity of their associates. This bill is very much in relation to the challenges posed by anonymising technologies and cyber-enabled crime. The most obvious example that people understand is offending perpetrated on the dark web.