Australia’s big encryption-busting laws have done little more than give authorities the power to ask nicely

‘Knowing that agencies were armed with this huge arsenal made it especially odd to see Reece Kershaw (left), the head of the AFP, and Mike Burgess, the head of Asio (right), politely ask for more cooperation from tech companies.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

There was much fanfare in late 2018 when Australia passed world-leading legislation to help law enforcement and spy agencies break encryption.

As communications increasingly moved into platforms that are end-to-end encrypted, including Signal, WhatsApp and Meta’s other apps including Messenger, authorities were losing track of criminals and spies who were “going dark”.