The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) has joined a coalition urging the Australian government to protect end-to-end encryption during the review process of the Online Safety Act. The joint statement emphasizes the critical role of end-to-end encryption in ensuring safety, security, and privacy for millions in Australia.
"End-to-end encryption plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety, security and privacy of millions in Australia," reads the statement. It criticizes the statutory review of the Online Safety Act for characterizing end-to-end encryption as an obstacle to online safety and law enforcement rather than recognizing its importance for online security.
The statement warns that without strong protections for communications and stored information secured by end-to-end encryption, "the eSafety Commissioner may soon issue industry standards under the Australian Online Safety Act that effectively force service providers to weaken or circumvent end-to-end encryption to monitor and intercept communications." Such measures would compromise the security, confidentiality, and integrity of communications both during transmission and storage.
Further concerns are raised about a general duty of care being added to the Act without safeguarding encryption. This could compel service providers to remove or circumvent end-to-end encryption to meet their duty of care obligations, potentially leading to pervasive surveillance and undermining online safety as well as human rights related to privacy and free expression.
"End-to-end encryption not only protects children from bad actors harvesting their personal data or intercepting and taking over their communications – it also protects children by preventing their personal data from being used for profiling and advertising," states the coalition.
The joint statement calls on the Australian government to use the review process of the Online Safety Act to actively protect and encourage end-to-end encryption. "Doing so would benefit people, businesses, and governments and would be crucial to achieving the goal of the Online Safety Act."
The full statement along with a list of signatories is available for further reading.
