The boss of Australia’s counter-espionage agency has warned foreign spies appear to be using dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Hinge to get sensitive information from Australians
delivered on Wednesday night, Mr Burgess for the first time confirmed that espionage and foreign interference has supplanted terrorism as ASIO’s principal security concern.
Mr Burgess said Australians needed to be particularly on guard this year in the lead-up to the federal election, which will likely be in May.He confirmed ASIO recently detected and disrupted a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an election in Australia, but wouldn’t identify the jurisdiction because “we are seeing attempts at foreign interference at all levels of government, in all states and territories”.
While the political candidates had no knowledge of the foreign interference plot, Mr Burgess said if ASIO hadn’t acted some of the candidates could have been elected and then encouraged to hire foreign agents or proxies as political staffers. Wednesday night’s address was the third annual threat assessment by Mr Burgess, who shocked many in the intelligence community when he began delivering the speeches in 2020, which always include case studies of some of ASIO’s operations.
“Instead of saying, ‘that’s ridiculous’ – or ‘hell no’, which would have been my response – the brains trust replied with, ‘no comment – and that’s off the record’.
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