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Malcolm Turnbull has told Parliament that the Australian government is not going to demand the creation of encryption backdoors, and is instead going to focus on collaboration and receiving greater assistance from social media and telecommunications companies.

"This is not about creating or exploiting backdoors, as some privacy advocates continue to say, despite constant reassurance from us," the prime minister said on Tuesday.

"We need even stronger cooperation from the big social media and messaging platforms in the fight against terrorism and the extremism which spawns it.

"Encryption ... is a vital piece of security for every user of the internet. Protecting all of us as we go about our lives from shopping, to banking, to chatting online. However, encrypted messaging applications are also used by criminals and terrorists."

Turnbull said that despite the "strong libertarian tradition" of companies based in Silicon Valley, the privacy of a terrorist cannot be more important than public safety, and said it is balancing community safety with civil liberties.

"The government has a proven track record of getting a track record between ensuring the safety and security of the people, and defending the liberties and freedoms of that are integral to our way of our life."

Under the Liberal government, with the support of the Labor opposition, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015 was passed in March 2015 and mandated the collection of customers' call records, location information, IP addresses, billing information, and other data to be stored for two years by telecommunications carriers, accessible without a warrant by law-enforcement agencies.

Turnbull said metadata had been used to break up 12 disruptions of terror plots since 2014.

"Metadata has proven vital in nearly every serious criminal investigation conducted today, from organised crime, child sex offences, to counterespionage, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism," he said.

Following the recent WannaCry incident, Turnbull said the government has created a taskforce to quickly respond to online security threats and incidents.

In response, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the resources of the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Cyber Security Centre should be used to protect small and medium businesses from attacks, and called on big internet companies to do more.

"The big internet companies have very quickly become an essential part of our free, democratic society, but they need to realise this is a two-way relationship," he said. "They need to be part of our society in the sense of working with us, as well as taking from us.

"They need to see this fight as their fight, not just our fight. Not just a fight where they help when asked, but a fight in which they come to us with ideas."

Shorten said social media companies are in a position to tackle the "underbelly of terror propaganda", and are involved in the process of content being put online.

"We need them to be proactive, not reactive. Terrorism does not self-police, so we cannot rely on a self-policing system," he said.

The Labor leader called for the tracking of electronic currencies, such as bitcoin.

In 2014, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, the Australian government agency responsible for countering money laundering and the financing of terrorism, said it was able to track each conversion transaction from bitcoin into or out of Australian dollars.

"Australia is very fortunate among its international counterparts in that we are one of the few countries which currently collects all international funds transfers into or out of Australia," John Schmidt, CEO of Austrac, told Senate Estimates at the time.

"At some point, a person will be purchasing bitcoin using Australian dollars, for example, and then, if they are dealing in substances or services, will want to convert those bitcoins back into the legitimate currencies of wherever they are, so they can gain the benefit of them.

"Because we get the international funds transfers instructions, it is possible using other intelligence sources to identify transactions where people are purchasing bitcoins."

Turnbull said the government would be looking to pass its Telecommunications Sector Security Reforms in this sitting period of Parliament.

The reforms force telco carriers and carriage service providers (CSPs) to do their best to protect their networks from unauthorised access or interference for the purpose of security, with carriers and CSPs to notify the Attorney-General's Department of any changes to their services, systems, or equipment that could have a "material adverse effect" on their ability to comply with this duty.

Over the weekend, British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron said Facebook and Twitter could see hefty fines if they fail to remove extremist and terrorist content.

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Australian government is not interested in encryption backdoors: Turnbull - ZDNet

The Australian government wants to introduce laws that would force technology companies to ensure their systems are capable of decrypting communications.

The plan is a response to the use of encrypted communications channels by terrorists, and follows in the footsteps of the United Kingdom's moves to force communications operators to make sure they canhand over encrypted messages to law enforcement agencies.

The UK's new 'technology capability notices' were proposed following the Westminster terrorist attack. They impose obligations on operators of communications services to ensure they are technically able to hand over decrypted data in "near real time" to the government.

The Australian government over the weekend revealed its intention to pursue a similar path, but is yet to work out much of the detail of its plans.

Attorney-General George Brandis specifically called out the UK's technical capability notices when revealing the government's plan to "lift the legal obligations on device makers and social media companies to co-operate with authorities in decrypting communications".

He said current Commonwealth legislation 'doesn't go far enough' to impose obligations of "co-operation" on technology companies.

"Now I should also say of course, that in the first instance the best way to approach this is to solicit the cooperation of companies like Apple and Facebook and Google, and so on, and I think there has been a change of the culture in the last year or more," Brandis said.

"There is a much greater conscious proactive willingness on the part of the companies to be cooperative but we need the legal sanction as well."

He insisted the government had no intention of forcing technology companies to introduce backdoors in their products.

"A technical capability notice ... subject to tests of reasonableness and proportionality, imposes upon them a greater obligation to work with authorities where a notice is given to them to assist in breaking a communication," Brandis told Sky News.

"So thats not backdooring."

But it is unclear how the government expects technology companies to break encryption.

The UK's new laws have been fiercely criticised as being vague and giving communications providers no option but to build backdoors into their systems.

End-to-end encryption prevents the operators of Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram and Apple's iMessage, among others, from being able to simply hand over messages: the keys to decrypt the information are held by those involved in the communication.

Because of this some have taken the UK law as an attempt by the government tooutlaw end-to-end encryption.The UK government has avoided answering questions on the matter.

Brandis suggested to the Sydney Morning Heraldthat one option would be to "improve warrant-based access ... at the sender or receiver ends". However, this can largely only be achieved through compromise of an end user device, or the application.

"At one point or more of that process, access to the encrypted communication is essential for intelligence and law enforcement," Brandis told the SMH.

"If there are encryption keys then those encryption keys have to be put at the disposal of the authorities."

Brandis said the details of the plan would be nutted out at the Five Eyes conference in Canada in two weeks' time.

He indicated the government had not yet decided whether warrants would be needed to access decrypted information, but again referenced the UK technical capability notice model.

A notice works as a first step to "prepare the ground" in case an operator receives an interception warrant, ensuring they have the technical ability to comply. It does not, of itself, require an operator to conduct an interception.

"Thats a discussion that we need to have," Brandis said.

"The point at which a power is only exercised under warrant as opposed to a power that resides without the requirement for a warrant in law enforcement and intelligence will always be a part of this discussion and thats one of the issues that will be on the table at Five Eyes in Ottawa in a fortnights time."

He claimed Australians would not be concerned at the privacy implications involved in the government's plan because the "Facebook generation ... put more and more of their own personal data out there".

"I think that there is an entirely different attitude of privacy among young people than there was perhaps a generation or two ago. And I think the social media companies are regardful of that as well. So let the civil liberties point of view be heard, let legitimate privacy considerations always be had regard to," Brandis said.

"But I think where the community is at at the moment is to prioritise their concern about giving law enforcement and intelligence agencies the tools they need to thwart terrorism, and everyone knows that the internet and cyberspace are important vectors for terrorists."

Privacy and civil liberties advocates have warned that moves to decrypt communications would simply push terrorists onto other technology platforms whilst having negative consequences for financial transactions, online commerce, and security of personal data.

A UK public bills parliamentary committee highlighted several technical issues with the legislation and said it should include a specific threshold that recognises it is unreasonable to hand over decrypted content from end-to-end encrypted channels.

"The damage to security may be done as soon as a company finds itself having to comply with such a notice and install a back door, whether or not it subsequently has to provide data under warrant," the committee said.

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Turnbull govt wants to force companies to break encryption - iTnews