The Attorney-General has introduced the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 into Parliament.
The Bill has been referred to the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety for inquiry and reporting.
The Bill sets the legislative framework to enable Australia’s accession to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime – the only binding international treaty on cybercrime.
The Convention provides systems to facilitate international co-operation between signatory countries, as well as establishing procedures to make investigations more efficient, including:
- empowering authorities to request the preservation of specific communications (with access subject to a warrant in Australia);
- helping authorities from one country to collect data in another country;
- establishing a 24/7 network to provide immediate help to investigators; and
- facilitating the exchange of information between countries.
The Bill makes three key changes to existing laws:
- Preservation – enabling agencies to request the preservation of communications by a carrier that they intend to seek a warrant over;
- International Cooperation – providing Australian agencies with greater access to information stored overseas in the investigation of cybercrime and crimes committed using the internet; and
- Cybercrime Offences – extending the scope of existing Commonwealth computer offences to fully meet the requirements for such offences under the Convention.
