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Australia's Attorney-General's department wants new laws to force users and providers of encrypted internet communications services to decode any data intercepted by authorities.The proposal is buried in a submission (pdf) by the department to a Senate inquiry on revision of the Telecommunications Interception Act.The Attorney General's submission makes it clear that its proposal is a "preliminary view" that may not align with that of the broader Australian Government, which it says has made "no decision" on any TIA-related revision.The department argues the rise of over-the-top communications (OTT) makes it more difficult to guarantee that intercepted communications will be in an "intelligible" format. The rising adoption of encryption to thwart mass surveillance attempts is irking authorities."Sophisticated criminals and terrorists are exploiting encryption and related counter-interception techniques to frustrate law enforcement and security investigations, either by taking advantage of default-encrypted communications services or by adopting advanced encryption solutions," the submission noted.Though it does not name its key targets, Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft already enable encryption by default for their respective web-based email services. BlackBerry's messaging encryption has also previously been raised as a law enforcement issue.
