Tomcat
Professional
- Messages
- 2,687
- Reaction score
- 1,036
- Points
- 113
I do not like extra "water", I hope you noticed this in the last article about Argentina.
With Australia, too, straight to the point, but you definitely need to understand what kind of background they have in terms of surveillance, and not only for their citizens ...
Five Eyes Alliance
The Five Eyes Alliance emerged from a Cold War intelligence pact called the US-UK Agreement. It was originally an intelligence-sharing agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom aimed at deciphering Soviet and Russian intelligence.
By the late 1950s, Canada, Australia and New Zealand also joined the Alliance. These five English-speaking countries make up the Five Eyes Alliance as we know it today. Intelligence sharing between the five countries has only grown stronger over time as it has expanded to include Internet surveillance.
For years, this agreement has been a well-kept secret between these five countries. Its existence was only discovered by the public in 2003. The situation began to become clearer in 2013 after Edward Snowden leaked a number of documents that he received while working as an NSA contractor.
These documents revealed widespread government surveillance of citizens' online activities and also provided evidence that the international intelligence-sharing network is more extensive than previously thought.
What the government came up with ...
The Western Australian government has given itself the right to install surveillance devices in homes, or force people to wear them so that those who need to be isolated during the coronavirus crisis do not interact with the local population.
Mark McGowan (governor of this part of the country) said that these measures will apply to those who were sent to self-isolation and do not obey the authorities.
The law allowing this regime was passed on March 31st, after very short debate, is the Emergency Management Act Amendment Bill 2020 (COVID-19 Response). It describes the surveillance mode itself, as well as the fact that the Emergency Coordinator has the authority to mandate the mandatory use of surveillance equipment.
If the Coordinator makes this decision, then he has the appropriate powers:
- Force a person to wear a government-approved electronic device.
- Force the installation of government-approved human observation equipment in the community. If the person has no place of residence, then at any other place indicated by the official.
- Give any other order to the person necessary to properly supervise him.
Journalists from various publications approached the Western Australian government with a request for detailed information about the devices that will be used, but they did not receive a response ...
How the TraceTogether app will work
They did not "reinvent the wheel", Trace Together uses Bluetooth to fix contact with people.
The Australian government liked the development of the Singapore government, and they kindly opened the code to them. But, the Australians decided to modify it.
Bluetooth improvements
Like the original TraceTogether, the Australian tracking app will use Bluetooth to detect when two people with the app installed are within a meter and a half of each other for 15 minutes or more.
It will do this by exchanging encrypted unique identifiers that will be stored on the person's device for 21 days.
The Australian government calculated something there, and in order for the application to be effective, they decided - 40% of the population must install it.
Also, more than one government representative convinced people that the government itself would not collect information about citizens in this way, that they would not have access to this data, no one was watching them, and in general everything was just fine.
They also promised that the data would never leave the phone ... but something went wrong with the government (as always ) ...
Data storage in Amazon
Tech companies have raised the alarm that the Australian government has signed a data storage contract with Amazon.
The journalists learned that this tender was limited, and was carried out only at the invitation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is primarily responsible for border protection and national security.
Partnering with Amazon may also mean that Australian data may be obtained by US law enforcement in accordance with a 2018 law that allows them to obtain information held by US registered companies, regardless of where the information is stored.
And the icing on the cake: the government plans to store decryption keys in the same cloud as the data itself. ??
Database keys will be managed through the Amazon Web Services Key Management System (KMS).
