Australian Signals Directorate

"Cyberdefence"  Australian Signals Directorate   (Intelligence agency)
Parent organization	Australia
Headquarters	Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Leader	Australian Minister for Defence
Australian snooping agency, foreign, and probably also domestic.

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), formerly the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), is the federal agency in the Australian Government responsible for foreign signals intelligence, support to military operations, cyber warfare, and information security. In 2018 it was exposed that it wanted formal rights to domestic spying. This might be an attempt at retrospective legalization of an already existing practice.

Microsoft to "help" ASD

In October 2023, the American corporation Microsoft signed a $5 billion contract to "help" the Australian government. According to press releases, the collaboration will "enhance the government and Microsoft’s joint capability to identify, prevent and respond to cyber threats, which are growing in both frequency and severity". The director general of ASD, Rachel Noble, said the investments would strengthen the agency’s "strong partnership with Microsoft and … turbocharge our collective capacity to protect Australians in cyberspace".

In 2018, Microsoft accreditation from ASD, allowing it to store highly classified government information up to "protected" level on its Office 365 platform and specific Azure services. When asked by Australian Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John whether the information stored on the Australian instance of the Microsoft Azure Cloud will be able to be accessed by overseas staff, Australia's Cyber CoordinatorAlastair MacGibbon refused to answer specifically, and said he is satisfied that the Microsoft staff that will have access to data will be "appropriately cleared".

Microsoft also has its tentacles placed in other parts of Australian "cyberdefence", including former Microsoft executive Julie Inman Grant as head censor.

Raid after exposure of domestic snooping

In February 2019, Australian federal police raided the home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst investigating the publication of a leaked plan to allow government spying on Australians. The warrant from an ACT magistrate gave police authority to search the home, computer and mobile phone of the News Corp Sunday titles’ political editor.

In April 2018 Smethurst reported that the heads of the defence and home affairs ministries had discussed draconian new powers to allow the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on Australian citizens for the first time. Under the mooted plan, spies would be allowed to secretly access emails, bank accounts and text messages with approval from the defence and home affairs ministers.

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End	Description
John Frewen	Principal Deputy Director-General	1 March 2018	2020	Later led the National COVID Vaccine Taskforce

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