Rubenerd

Ariel Bogle filed this report for ABC Science:

Government officials spoke multiple times with US technology giants Apple, Facebook and Microsoft about the proposed legislation in 2017 and 2018, according to heavily redacted records obtained under freedom of information laws.

Telecommunication providers such as Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and Vocus are also named.

But no brands from Australia’s IT sector appear among the dozens of pages released so far, further fuelling industry complaints that the impact of the laws on local industry was not adequately considered as the bill was developed.

Laws passed in 2018 can force technology companies to help police access encrypted messages.

Look out for other journalists realising this applies to them, and channeling their frustration into articles we really needed last year when the opposition were busy rolling over, and the general public were happy to ignore it.