Australia passes the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2021

Australia passed the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2021 which will provide the police with more powers to surveil criminal suspects online. This bill has created three new types of warrants (data disruption warrant, Network activity warrant, and Account takeover warrants) that should aid the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) in modifying and deleting data belonging to cybercriminal suspects and taking over their accounts.

The bill, which has given greater power to the police, will now help them infiltrate the internet and crack down on paedophiles and criminals. 

However, concerns have been expressed over the greater power provided to the police and spy agencies, fearing that it may be used for collecting the data of innocent parties online, without adequate provisions to protect such parties from increased state power.