Police get online account takeover, data disruption powers
 

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/polic...-powers-569062

It would be nice to hear something about this, and how Fastmail determines to secure our data...

FastMail are going to have to move their business out of Australia now that it appears a judge issued warrant is no longer required to gain access to someone's account.

Fastmail keeps no data inside Australia. It is unclear to me how moving Fastmail's formal headquarters would affect the authorities' ability to [ab]use these new powers. If they can achieve an account break in, it matters not where in the world the data and email administrators reside.

They've argued in their TOS, under Security Policy, that they need an Australian court order to access the data, and that a USA Court Order is meaningless to them...

So, according to the TOS, and Security Policy, the Australian law is directly applicable -- and now, the USA can likely dictate complete access through Australian authorities.

Tick off the wrong foreign country too... and they could accuse you of anything.

I'm not jumping ship, but I'm taking a much closer look at this. I cannot understate the potential ramifications of this.

Accessing data WITHOUT a court order is likely going to be a showstopper to me, honestly.

Agree entirely ChinaLamb.
It is an Australian company operated in the main by Australians so as FastMail themselves have said on many occasions Australian law applies.
That law has now been changed whereby judge issued warrants are no longer required to gain access to data.

I wonder how this law would apply to someone who is not an Australian citizen but uses Fastmail or other Australian services? On the other hand, I believe their servers are based in the USA, so does make the data that resides there out of reach of this law?

Read my post from earlier (~3 above) - it answers all your questions.

Not really. Can an Australian court order access information from a US citizen or citizens of other countries when the data actually does not reside in Australia? Are we now in a world where any country can go after anyone anywhere in the world whenever they want to regardless of their citizenship based on the online services they use?

The way I am looking at it is that the authorities can take control of a FastMail admin account that is used by an Australia based employee and use that access to look at any email they want from any FastMail user, all without a judge's warrant.

I think you will find its individual computers owned by the bad boys and not network providers and servers....

Don't believe all what you read from the press.

Huh... I don't think I've read anything about this in the press. I am, however, choosing to believe Fastmail and I tend to believe NYI too...

/cl

More information on the madness that is Australia:

https://youtu.be/lJzJUxDB9iA

Closing my fastmail account.

Understandable. I may go that route too.



What are some email providers you'd consider migrating to ?

Considering that too.
Who knows what is going on there behind closed doors ?