← Home

Australia's Assistance and Access Act

The government can secretly compel companies to break their own encryption. The company is legally prohibited from telling you.

In one sentence

The AA Act (2018) allows Australian agencies to secretly compel tech companies to build backdoors, weaken encryption, or hand over data — with criminal penalties for employees who disclose the order.

How it works

Three levels: Technical Assistance Requests (voluntary), Technical Assistance Notices (compulsory), Technical Capability Notices (must build new capabilities including breaking encryption). All have secrecy provisions. 5 years imprisonment for disclosure.

Mandatory data retention

All ISPs and telcos store 2 years of metadata. 87 government agencies access it without a warrant — 314,000 authorisations per year.

Sources