Title: International cybercrime, transnational evidence gathering and the challenges in Australia: finding the delicate balance

Authors: Jenny Ng

Addresses: Faculty of Law, Education, Business and Arts, School of Law, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina campus, Ellengowan Drive, Darwin, Northern Territory 0909, Australia

Abstract: Digital evidence is a challenging aspect of cybercrime. The fact that the internet knows no jurisdictional boundaries stretches this difficulty a step further as one will then have to deal with the jurisdictional issues in the transnational gathering of evidence in digital crimes. In Australia, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 was amended in 2012 by the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Act 2012. The Act allows Australia to accede to the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime. The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 has been criticised due to privacy concerns as there are no restrictions on the use of information requested by foreign countries. This article examines the challenges in transnational evidence gathering in cybercrime in Australian law and its challenges internationally.

Keywords: international cybercrime; transnational evidence gathering; Australia; privacy protection; privacy preservation; evidence; Snowden; surveillance; data retention; tort; invasion of privacy; law.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICT.2016.078879

International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 2016 Vol.9 No.2, pp.177 - 198

Received: 03 Apr 2014
Accepted: 24 Jul 2014
Published online: 04 Sep 2016 *

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