The company has argued that if it is compelled to provide a software "back door" into its phones to help law enforcement agencies catch criminals and terrorists, this would reduce the security for all users. It also says it has provided significant assistance to police agencies engaged in investigations, when asked. Apple's top privacy executives have flown out to Australia twice in the past month. Credit:Apple Apple famously refused to comply with a request by the FBI to unlock the phone of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack in 2016, drawing criticism from law enforcement agencies and praise from privacy advocates. While the Turnbull government is preparing new legislation to introduce by the end of the year, it is not yet clear how it wants tech companies to facilitate access to secure devices such as phones. The laws will be modelled on those introduced in Britain about a year ago and the government says it will update and enhance the obligations on tech companies that make phones and secure messaging applications such as WhatsApp to provide assistance to police and spy agencies when requested, subject to a warrant.

Just how this greater access to, for example, locked devices and encrypted messages can technically be achieved is not clear and this, in part, was the purpose of the government-Apple meeting. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull checks his Apple watch during question time. Credit:Andrew Meares A source familiar with the discussions between Turnbull government representatives and Apple said the company was effectively trying to minimise the amount of additional regulation and legal obligation that would be placed on it and other tech companies to hand over or facilitate access to secure information. Another source familiar with the discussions said both sides were taking a collaborative approach, and that the Turnbull government had explicitly said it did not want a government back door into people's phones, or to weaken encryption. Last week, Senator Brandis said the government would work with companies such as Apple to faciliate greater access to secure communications but warned that "we'll also ensure that the appropriate legal powers, if need be, as a last resort, coercive powers of the kind that recently were introduced into the United Kingdom under the Investigatory Powers Act...are available to Australian intelligence and law enforcement authorities as well".

The Prime Minister has been pushing for tech companies to work more closely with government and not allow "ungoverned spaces" to flourish online, and to allow easier access to encrypted information on phones and in the cloud, subject to a warrant. Mr Turnbull has said tech companies such as Apple and Facebook "have to face up to their responsibility. They can't just wash their hands of it and say: 'It's got nothing to do with us'." At the G20 he played a key role in drafting a section of the leaders' final statement on encryption that emphasised the law had to apply online, just as it did elsewhere. The paragraph promised, in part, that "in line with the expectations of our peoples, we also encourage collaboration with industry to provide lawful and non-arbitrary access to available information where access is necessary for the protection of national security against terrorist threats". Follow us on Facebook