US, Australia agree to share people’s phone, text records
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The agreement will purportedly allow the US and Australia to request and obtain "suspects’" electronic communications from telecom companies between each other.
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The agreement falls under the US Cloud Act.
The United States and Australia agreed on Wednesday to make it easier for their respective justice departments to obtain digital phone and email records needed in "criminal investigations."
Meanwhile, US Attorney General Merrick Garland and Australian Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews claimed that the agreement would allow both to attain "timely access" to electronic information vital for "serious crime investigations."
The agreement, which falls under the US Cloud Act, will purportedly allow them to request and obtain "suspects'" electronic communications from telecoms companies in the other country without first going through what they described as "a time-consuming legal process."
This means that Australian investigators will be able to obtain communications even if they are stored on a server in the United States and US justice authorities are not involved in the investigation.
"The Cloud Act agreement between the United States and Australia will make our cooperation to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute serious crimes more effective, and in doing so, this agreement will help keep our citizens safer," Garland added.
Both officials made a pretense of assuring that privacy and civil liberties rules would be followed, amid concerns that the Cloud Act will allow for unjustified searches of people's private information not only by their own governments but also by others.
It is worth mentioning that the United States and Britain inked a similar deal in October 2019.
