Encryption bill all or nothing, says spy boss Mike Phelan

ACIC head Mike Phelan­ has criticised Labor’s offer to provide agencies only temporary access to terrorists’ encryp­ted messages.

Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission chief executive Mike Phelan.

The head of the country’s crim­inal spy organisation, Mike Phelan­, has criticised Labor’s compromise offer to provide securit­y agencies only temporary powers to access terrorists’ encryp­ted messages.

The head of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and a former Aust­ralian Federa­l Police deputy commissioner also attacked claims from the tech sector that the laws would undermine encrypt­ion.

Mr Phelan, who previously headed the AFP’s national security unit and ran the Australian High Tech Crime Centre, told The Australian that the bill must be viewed as a “holistic package”.

“No one component of this legislation can work in isolation, they all need to work across purpose­s and that includes the types of offences it can be used for,” he said.

“(There is) continual crossover so carving out pieces of legislation, particularly in terms of types of ­offences, is counter-productiv­e in the long term.”

Mr Phelan said the laws would also deliver efficiency and cost-saving measures for government departments and police.

“Very few of our operations are outside of the encryption domai­n … the problem is enduring but it’s obviously getting worse,” he said.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann yesterday accused Labor of potentially aiding terrorists for not supporting the government’s tough new encryption laws in full on the Coalition’s timetable.

Attorney-General Christian Porter and Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus yesterday continued negotiations over the bill, which is due to be entered into parliament this week.

Under government and security agency pressure to fast-track the laws in time for the heightened terror threat over Christmas, Labor proposed to pass an ­“interim” version of the laws for spies to use the power for certain ­offences.

At the moment, some inter­national companies offer spyware and hacking services, but Mr ­Phelan said those services would not serve the needs of agencies in the future. “This technology is galloping at a rate which is exponential,” he said.

Companies including Cisco have argued that the “technical capability notices” in the laws would result in “back doors” that would undermine encryption — exposing Australian data to ­foreign hackers — while other technology businesses have said that such a move had the potentia­l to damage the reputation of Aus­tralian companies overseas.

Mr Phelan said that the laws set up access to data “on a case-by-case basis” and creating ­system weaknesses was prohibited under the laws.

Business groups urged parliament not to rush their consideration of the bill. “We urge all political parties to avoid the temptation of pushing the proposed decryption legislation too quickly through the parliament,” Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said.

At the same time, some Labor MPs have broken their silence over their concerns about the bill. Labor’s Tim Watts said the government was trying to “ram through this bill in order to start a fight to distract from its political woes”.

Mr Porter met with Labor yesterday to discuss possible com­promises but the government has ruled out accepting an interim bill.

“We’re not having any interim agreements,’’ he told Sky News. “There’ll be a bill put before parliament and the bill will either be agreed or it won’t be agreed, but we will be dealing with it this week.”

The Australian understands that Scott Morrison will not back down and will ignore Labor’s calls for temporary measures. The Prime Minister is believed to be planning to use the final parliamentary sitting week of the year to attack Bill Shorten’s national security credentials.