"To protect human rights, identify and disrupt Australia’s “hacking Bill”", 17 August 2021.

The Australian Identify and Disrupt Bill, also known as the hacking Bill, severely endangers digital privacy and security by conferring unprecedented hacking powers to intelligence agencies. Despite this, it is close to passage...

The Identify and Disrupt Bill grants extensive hacking powers to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) through three new warrants... These warrants allow the authorities to “disrupt” – add, copy, delete, or alter – the data of suspected offenders; hack into their devices and networks to discern identity; and covertly take over their accounts and lock them out. Civil society has rightly criticised the hacking Bill for being “wide-ranging and coercive”, devoid of safeguards and detrimental to privacy... 

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) in Australia has recommended 33 changes... [including] integrating greater oversight, judicial review, consideration of privacy implications, sunset clauses, and assurance that it will only be used for the most serious offences. We welcome the changes PJCIS recommends, but they are not sufficient to warrant passage...

The Identify and Disrupt Bill will operate as part of a larger framework of surveillance laws... that amplifies the government’s powers without adequate limitations, undermines encryption, and endangers human rights...