Minor correction: I believe your case would require a technical capability notice the first time it was done. Assistance notices are “help us with the tools you

Minor correction: I believe your case would require a technical capability notice the first time it was done. Assistance notices are “help us with the tools you already have” and regular warrant stuff, whereas capability notices are “you must develop the capability to help us”, and come from the Attorney-General with approval from the Minister for Communications. (A good summary of what this stuff means: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/nat-security/files/assistance-access-act-faq.pdf#page=4 https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/nat-security/files/assistance....) But I also don’t think that this stuff would actually apply to Apple or Google. It’s part of the Telecommunications Act, for carriers and carriage service providers, which, while broad definitions, probably exclude them. Back when I worked at Fastmail (2017–2020), Fastmail as an email service provider was considered subject to that act for data request purposes, but the footnote at https://www.fastmail.com/blog/advocating-for-privacy-aabill-australia/#fn1 https://www.fastmail.com/blog/advocating-for-privacy-aabill-... indicates that in 2021 they were able to change to using the Crimes Act and such instead, so I’m not sure if they’re even subject to the Telecommunications Act in this way any more (not that the A&A Bill affected them anyway since they don’t do E2EE), and Apple and Google’s app stores feel like they would be even more out of scope. But I don’t know; there’s quite a bit of legislation I’ve paid close attention to, but the Telecommunications Act isn’t among that collection. And even if these app store companies aren’t covered by this stuff now, there are probably other governments out there that can already insist on this sort of thing, and plenty of future prospects, the A&A Bill showing how easily this sort of thing can be shoved through.