[LINK] Oz: 'Facebook hits back in spat with AFP'
Roger Clarke
Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Tue Jun 1 08:41:14 AEST 2010
[Taking this article at face value, Facebook 1 AFP 0!]
Facebook hits back in spat with Australian Federal Police
Caitlin Fitzsimmons
The Australian
May 31, 2010 12:00AM
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/facebook-hits-back-in-spat-with-australian-federal-police/story-e6frg996-1225873247259
FACEBOOK has hit back at criticism of its dealings with Australian
law enforcement, branding the Australian Federal Police as "entirely
unresponsive" to communication from the social networking site.
Joe Sullivan, chief security officer at Facebook in Palo Alto,
California, told The Australian the comments made last week by Neil
Gaughan, assistant commissioner at the Australian Federal Police,
were "astonishing".
"We've had several outstanding requests to him for information or
assistance," Mr Sullivan said. "To see him complaining about us when
he's been entirely unresponsive is incredibly frustrating."
A spokesman for the AFP said it had "detailed documentary evidence"
showing the agency had made "significant contact" with Facebook
trying to resolve enforcement issues.
"Claims made by Facebook that the AFP failed to communicate or
respond are not accurate. Any suggestion contrary to this is
misleading," the spokesman said.
Mr Gaughan was quoted in Fairfax newspapers last week saying that
Facebook should amend its law enforcement guidelines to take account
of Australian legal terminology. He cited one instance where Facebook
had ignored a warrant because it was issued by a judicial officer
rather than a court.
Before flying to Washington DC for a meeting on child pornography at
the US Department of Justice last week, Mr Gaughan claimed the
current situation "could lead to a loss of life".
But Mr Sullivan said Facebook's global law enforcement guidelines did
not use legal terminology, rather provided information on how to
contact the site. This included a 24-hour hotline for police to use.
He added that earlier this year, the Facebook security team drafted
law enforcement guidelines specifically for Australia and these were
sent to Mr Gaughan and the Attorney-General's office at the beginning
of March for review.
He said he had received a response from the Attorney-General's office
but nothing from Mr Gaughan.
Mr Sullivan said he was also waiting for feedback from Mr Gaughan on
the idea of training designated law enforcement officers on the
complex laws governing the collection of online data, a proposal that
had emerged from discussions between Facebook and the Australian
Attorney-General's office. Mr Gaughan had failed to respond to
several queries about unfamiliar forms of search warrant as well, he
said.
Jurisdiction has become a major issue for Australian police dealing
with mostly US-based social networking sites. State and federal
police have reported difficulties in forcing California-based
Facebook to comply with Australian police requests or court warrants
and suggested the website should appoint an Australian-based liaison
to give law enforcement a single point of contact.
Mr Sullivan argued that Facebook did have a dedicated liaison person
for law enforcement in Australia -- Genevieve Ovalle. She is based in
California but was in Australia at the National Telecommunications
Conference in Sydney last month, along with representatives from the
Attorney-General's office, the AFP and state police agencies.
Mr Sullivan said no one in law enforcement had asked Facebook to
appoint a dedicated person in Australia and rejected the notion that
this would be an advantage.
"The data is stored in the United States and the tools that we use to
access the data are here in the United States and our team is staffed
to have people on call during the week, during the weekend, and at
night, so physical location is really not going to impact that in the
least," Mr Sullivan said. "We support law enforcement requests from
all over the world and to decentralise our team in that way would
probably create inefficiencies rather than efficiencies."
In the case of the death of Sydney teenager Nona Belomesoff two weeks
ago, Mr Sullivan said Facebook was contacted for investigative
support by police in Australia at 10pm California time, responded by
11pm, and provided the requested data by 2am.
When asked if he would be prepared to consider the idea of basing a
police liaison in Australia, he added: "I would want to understand
what the underlying issues that they were hoping to address are. We
would be willing to discuss any issue of concern that they have."
Mr Sullivan claimed that prior to last week he had believed
Facebook's relations with Australian law enforcement to be very
positive. He added: It was very disappointing and incredibly
frustrating to see characterisations that had never been communicated
to us by them.
Mr Sullivan said had been unable to contact Mr Gaughan since the
comments were published but he hoped to have a conversation with him
next week once he returned to Australia.
However, Mr Sullivan said Facebook had an outstanding relationship
with the Attorney-General's office, with at least five in-person
meetings over the past two years. He said Facebook followed the
advice of the Attorney-General's office whenever it received
unfamiliar police requests and warrants.
[Facebook is a member of IIA:
http://www.iia.net.au/index.php/members-a-h/736-facebook-inc-.html
and Facebook's 'Policy Consultant' toured recently:
http://www.iia.net.au/index.php/component/content/article/80/826-mozelle-thompson-facebook-on-mandatory-isp-filtering.html
]
--
Roger Clarke http://www.rogerclarke.com/
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
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