Australian police may be able to exploit legal ambiguities in Federal anti-terror legislation that could weaken e-mail privacy protection, according to Electronic Frontiers Australia.
Civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) said that "confusing" wording in proposed changes to telecommunications interception laws, which are being proposed in conjunction with the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Bill 2002, leaves the legal status of e-mails stored at ISPs in doubt.
Under laws proposed in the Telecommunications Interception Legislation Amendment Bill 2002, communications recognised by the legislation as delayed access message services or stored messages are protected. Police can only apply for a warrant to access them to investigate criminal activity carrying a minimum sentence of seven years.
However, EFA believes the status of stored e-mails is unclear and wants the status of stored e-mail to be placed on a par with telephone voice messages services unequivocally.
If the proposed telecommunications amendments are passed by parliament in their current state, the EFA believes police will exploit misunderstandings of obligations in relation to e-mail to force ISPs to open user accounts to scrutiny during investigations of lesser crimes.
EFA doesn't believe that the vague wording used in the legislation is deliberate, but it has entered a submission to the Senate inquiry into the Bill to have the status of stored e-mail made explicit.
"It appears that [the Bill] is intended to provide these e-mails with the same sort of protection that is given telephone communications," EFA spokesperson Irene Graham told ZDNet Australia. "Perhaps they haven't considered the technology involved in the legislation to write the Bill in a clear fashion".
The security Bills that prescribe changes to telecommunications interception laws is the Liberal government's second attempt to pass anti-terror legislation since September last year.
