The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has been told by technology giant Google that they foresee no scenario where the installation of government software would be of benefit and do not require assistance from the government in responding to cyber incidents.
"I cannot think of a situation where installing ASD software on our networks would be of assistance," stated the director of Google's threat analysis group Shane Huntley.
"We have a good working relationship with the ACSC and there has been productive threat sharing, and we believe that there is a productive means to collaborate as collaborators, not as coercion or them stepping in to operate our systems and to install stuff on our systems. That is where we draw the strong line."
The Security Legislation Amendment Bill would allow the government to provide "assistance" to entities in response to significant cyber attacks on Australian systems. This includes the proposal for software to be installed that is touted as aiding providers in dealing with threats.
On Thursday Huntley told PJCIS -- who is currently looking into the Bill -- that if there was an incident, Google would absolutely work with the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to help respond if required, however that is where it would end.
"I do not believe that there is a situation where installing ASD software on our networks or our systems, especially in the heat of an incident, is actually going to cause anything except more problems, and it's not going to help the solution and it's not going to help the problem at hand," he continued.
The tech sector has had a rocky relationship with government intervention from day one. Amazon Web Services (AWS) previously stated government "assistance" or "intervention" could give it overly broad power to issue directions or act autonomously and Microsoft was previously quoted saying it would prefer the government stay out of its incident response when talking to PJCIS.