Australian assistance and access bill - How does it affect Atlassian?

[Jan Hook]

Since Atlassian is an aussie Company, they have to follow the local laws. 

The australian Assistance and access bill forces Australian Tech companies to implement access to their Products - With backdoors or by weakening the encryption.

How does this affect the products of atlassian?

I bet all customers - espechially the ones which use the cloud-based solution - don't have any interest in anyone reading and snooping through their files. Confluence is mostly used as documentation and/or Wiki system. 

As long as it's self-hosted (in a internal network) it's supposed to be safe. But what about Updates? Will one of the Updates provided by atlassian contain a backdoor and/or any other kind of access to these installations? 

What about the cloud solution? Will there also be a way to snoop through customers' files?

How will atlassian follow the new Australian laws (which they have to as long as they stay in AUS) without giving access to anyone which knows the backdoor?

How secure will this be? Who's taking the responsibillity if this "Access for governmental use" is being abused by... lets say "non governmental individuals"? 

I havent read anything about this yet, and It would be nice to know if we still can use Atlassians products, or if we have to look for an alternative.

[Jan Hook]

So far, atlassian ignored all my contact requests. Twitter, email, I haven't got any answere by now. I have to start a new project soon, and it would be nict to know if I can still rely on atlassian, or if I have to look for alternatives.

Since all my tries went unheared or got ignored, I think I should make a public request of information.

So far, Confluence and Jira could be replaced quite easily by open souce solutions. Hipchat is also not unreplaceable. Same goes for bitbucket. 

It would be nice to get an official answere before 1st of March...

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Hi! 

IMO, Atlassian under preparing some solution. 

e.g. Atlassian located in different countries, therefore this company has possibility to do more reliable solution.

About this new just really interesting moments, but could you provide exist prepared law about that?

For me it was hard to find original source :)

Cheers,

Gonchik Tsymzhitov

[Jan Hook]

Summary and all needed texts:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6195

Home'affairs' summary:

https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/help-and-support/how-to-engage-us/consultations/the-assistance-and-access-bill-2018

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Thanks for  the provided links! 

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

@Jan Hook 

As I see last annual report 

https://s2.q4cdn.com/141359120/files/doc_financials/2018/TEAM-FY2018_Annual_Report.pdf

Atlassian Corporation Plc was incorporated and registered in the United Kingdom in November 2013 as a public company limited by shares. Our registered office is located at Exchange House, Primrose Street, London EC2A 2EG, c/o Herbert Smith Freehills LLP. Our principal offices are located at Level 6, 341 George St., Sydney, NSW, 2000 Australia for Atlassian Pty Ltd and at 1098 Harrison Street, San Francisco, California 94103 for Atlassian, Inc. Atlassian Corporation Plc is a holding company and we conduct substantially all of our business through certain of our subsidiaries, including Atlassian Pty Ltd and Atlassian, Inc. The principal laws and legislation under which we operate and under which the Class A ordinary shares and Class B ordinary shares are issued is the Companies Act and the regulations made thereunder.

Also, other references shows the picture of situation like everything can be ok :) : 

• https://www.thestreet.com/quote/TEAM/details/profile.html
• https://www.atlassian.com/company/contact
• https://craft.co/atlassian
• https://www.owler.com/company/atlassian
• https://s2.q4cdn.com/141359120/files/doc_financials/2017/AGM/TEAM-FY2017-Annual-Report.pdf

Disclaimer: I am not legal :) hence I don't know how it will be affected at least.

Cheers, 

Gonchik Tsymzhitov