The Australian Federal Police are blaming Facebook for hampering investigations and putting lives at risk, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Australia's head of high tech crime operations, Neil Gaughan, is flying to a meeting in Washington convened by the U.S. Department of Justice today to discuss passing a law that would force Facebook to give police information they need for investigations. Mr. Gaughan said Facebook's current non-co-operation could be dangerous:
'This [current] situation could lead to loss of life, there's no doubt about that at all … It's just a matter of time."
The Australian police want co-operation with Facebook and are aiming to get the social networking site to appoint a dedicated law liaison to help police in their investigations by, for example, matching user accounts to physical internet addresses.
But Facebook, which is already in deep trouble concerning its privacy policies, said in a statement that it wouldn't hire a law liaison:
"Facebook does not put [law enforcement] people in every country where Facebook has users; it's just not the way companies scale."
Mr. Gaughan said Facebook be brought into Australian law and legal terminology:
Mr. Gaughan said that in one case Facebook had ignored an Australian warrant because it was issued by a judicial officer rather than a court as its current guidelines require.
Currently, evidence obtained from Facebook can't be used in an Australian court of law:
Police can use intelligence to locate suspected offenders and then apply for search warrants to gain access to the suspect's computer. But such intelligence cannot be used as evidence in a trial.
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