Australian Treasurer Frydenberg Zuckerbergscottbloomberg: Australian Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, Investments and Economic Growth Josh Frydenberg says he will be meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to discuss whether the social media platform will allow Australian users to access their data in a more readable fashion.
“I’ll have those discussions with him on what Facebook is doing at the moment, the efforts they’ve made and where they are going so that we can see if there’s a pathway forward.” Frydenberg said. “But I think it also shows that legislation is appropriate here now”.
Frydenberg said that the government’s new data security bill, which has been described as “draconian”, would pass its final parliamentary reading on Tuesday and would be introduced into parliament after that.
“It’s important for our whole community to have the confidence that the personal information of hundreds of millions of people is secure.” he said.
“The legislation will provide not only for new powers for law enforcement, but also for trans-national authorities like the G20”.
Frydenberg said that the government would use the new powers to see if it could bring the outlaw motorcycle gang Comancheros before the courts.
“The Australian Federal Police have investigated the Comancheros since the 1980s and they’ve never been able to prosecute them because they don’t know where they are or who they are,” he said. “What we’re doing with our new laws is giving trans-national authority, like G20, within cyber security cooperation, to be able to have access and compel that information. So we can see who these people are and put them on trial”.
“It’s important that the proper rules are put in place to make sure that we don’t have another Heartbleed type of situation which was no doubt facilitated by the weaknesses in our IT systems.” Frydenberg said. “That’s why I think it’s really important for us to do this. It won’t take powers away from law enforcement, but it will give them better insight into the background of these people”.
Frydenberg said that the government was not expecting pushback from Facebook as it had been “well consulted” on the legislation.
“I think they understand where we’re coming from and that it’s a very serious matter”, he said. “As all of the tech giants have acknowledged themselves, the relationship between parliament and the social media companies is changing and that there are new rules in place. They’ve embraced those and they’ve shown a real commitment to complying with them”.
Frydenberg said he would be releasing additional details on the legislation after it passed parliament.
“It’ll be tabled in parliament so that the public can see what we are doing and how we are ensuring that we have a safe and secure cyberspace.” he said.
The government has been heavily criticised for its failure to secure personal information, with the Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen saying that “the government’s failure to address this (data security) issue is nothing short of shameful”.
“There is so much more to do”. he said. “It’s not enough to say that you are going to introduce legislation because frankly, the social media companies, Facebook in particular, have been dragging their feet on this issue and people expect more than that”.
Bowen said that the government should put an end to the “online black market” by better enforcing laws targeting people selling or buying illegal items online.
