Legal update: Australia's Identify and Disrupt Act expands surveillance powers to combat serious online crime provides a brief overview of the new Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021 (Cth) (Identify and Disrupt Act). The Identify and Disrupt Act aims to modernise Australia's law enforcement and intelligence surveillance powers in relation to online criminal activity. The legislation raised many concerns relating to privacy and civil rights with over 60 amendments being made to the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 (Cth) during its passage through federal Parliament. The Act has extra-territorial reach and broad compliance implications for journalists, media outlets, technology providers and corporate entities alike.

Practice note, The Identify and Disrupt Act 2021 (Cth) considers the operation and scope of the new law enforcement powers introduced by the Identify and Disrupt Act which amends the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 (Cth), the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth), the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) and associated legislation.  The new warrant-based powers introduced by the Identify and Disrupt Act are aimed at enhancing the ability of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) to identify and disrupt serious and organised online crime which is often enabled by the dark web and anonymising technologies.  The note provides an overview of the three new types of warrants which may be issued by the AFP and the ACIC: data disruption warrants, network activity warrants and online account takeover warrants.