News · Commonwealth offences
AN0M, Operation Ironside and the locked phone.
Five years after the AN0M devices were switched off, the argument that the messages were unlawfully intercepted is over. The High Court ended it in October. What Operation Ironside sentences are now turning on is narrower and much older: what a person did once police came, and whether the device opened.
By Aaron Kernaghan · Published 21 July 2026
The news, in summary.
On 17 July 2026 the District Court of Western Australia sentenced a former Perth lawyer to four years and four months imprisonment, with parole eligibility after two years and two months. He had pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to obstruct the course of justice under section 43(1) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), and two counts of failing to comply with an order made under section 3LA(2) of the same Act. The AFP announced the sentence that evening.
The charges came out of Operation Ironside. The AFP says he used an AN0M device to exchange several thousand messages with members of an outlaw motorcycle gang between 31 March and 5 June 2021, and that a search warrant was executed at his home on 7 June 2021, the day he was charged. He was sentenced on his plea, on facts accepted by the court.
That combination of charges is worth reading closely, because it is where Ironside prosecutions have ended up. The fight over whether AN0M material could be used at all has been resolved against the accused. What is left is the ordinary criminal law of obstruction, and a compelled-assistance provision that most people have never heard of.
What was Operation Ironside and how did AN0M work?
Operation Ironside ran from October 2018 to June 2021. The AFP and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation secretly controlled an encrypted messaging platform called AN0M. Handsets carrying it were sold through criminal networks as secure devices, stripped of ordinary phone functions, able to message only other AN0M handsets.
The High Court described the mechanism plainly in CD v The Commonwealth of Australia [2025] HCA 37. When a user composed a message and pressed send, a second message was created. It contained a copy of the first message together with additional metadata, and it was made available on a server the AFP could reach. The user did not know that was happening.
That design detail is the whole legal question. If the copy was made while the message was passing over a telecommunications system, the AFP needed an interception warrant under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth). It did not have one. It had warrants under the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 (Cth) and the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) instead.
Is AN0M evidence admissible in Australian courts?
It is. Two accused, referred to in the reported proceedings as CD and TB, applied in South Australia to exclude the AN0M communications on the ground that they had been intercepted contrary to section 7(1) of the TIA Act and were inadmissible under that Act. The trial judge dismissed the application and stated questions of law for the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of South Australia. The Court of Appeal answered no: the AN0M application and system did not involve an interception of a communication passing over a telecommunications system.
CD and TB were granted special leave to appeal to the High Court on 7 November 2024. A fortnight later the Commonwealth Attorney-General introduced the Surveillance Legislation (Confirmation of Application) Bill 2024. Both houses passed it on 28 November 2024. The Act provides that information or a record obtained under specified warrants issued to the AFP was not intercepted while passing over a telecommunications system, and was lawfully obtained.
Legislation passed after a grant of special leave, which resolves the very question the appeal was to decide, invites a constitutional challenge. CD and TB brought one.
What did the High Court decide in CD v Commonwealth?
On 8 October 2025 the High Court, constituted by Gageler CJ and Gordon, Edelman, Steward, Gleeson, Jagot and Beech-Jones JJ, answered the questions in the special case unanimously in the negative. The Confirmation of Application Act is not invalid.
Two grounds were argued. The first was that the Act was an impermissible exercise by the Parliament of the judicial power of the Commonwealth. The second was that it impermissibly interfered with and undermined the institutional integrity of courts vested with federal jurisdiction. The Court held that the impugned provisions do neither. The appeal from the Court of Appeal was then moot, and the grant of special leave was revoked.
For anyone advising on an Ironside brief, the practical effect is short. The admissibility point is gone. Section 138 of the Evidence Act discretion to exclude improperly or illegally obtained evidence needs an impropriety or illegality to work on, and Parliament has removed the one that was being argued. We have written about how that discretion operates on different facts in our note on section 138 and identification evidence.
What is attempting to pervert the course of justice under Commonwealth law?
Section 43(1) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) makes it an offence to attempt to obstruct, prevent, pervert or defeat the course of justice in relation to the judicial power of the Commonwealth. The maximum is 10 years imprisonment.
Two features of the drafting matter. Absolute liability attaches to the element that the judicial power concerned is the judicial power of the Commonwealth, so the prosecution does not have to prove the accused knew or was reckless about that federal character. And the conduct must be more than merely preparatory to the commission of the offence, which is where most of the argument in a contested case sits.
The State counterpart is section 319 of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), which carries 14 years and which we have covered separately in perverting the course of justice in NSW. Which section applies is not a matter of preference. It follows the proceeding the conduct was aimed at. A person interfering with a Commonwealth prosecution is in section 43 territory even if every other charge on the indictment is a State one.
One point of general principle is worth stating, because it comes up whenever a professional adviser is charged. Legal professional privilege does not attach to communications made in furtherance of a crime or a fraud. Advice given to a client about a charge is privileged. An arrangement to defeat an investigation is not, and never was.
Can police force you to unlock your phone in Australia?
Not by asking, and not by demanding it at the door. But there is a mechanism, and it is used.
Section 3LA(1) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) allows a constable to apply to a magistrate for an order requiring a specified person to provide any information or assistance that is reasonable and necessary to allow a constable to access data held in, or accessible from, a computer or data storage device. The provision reaches devices on warrant premises, and devices found in the course of an ordinary search or a frisk search of a person. That is a wider net than most people assume, and it is a magistrate who decides, not the officer holding the phone.
The order does not compel a confession and it is not an interview. It compels access. The right to silence survives the order, which is a distinction people get wrong at the worst possible time. Our note on the police interview deals with the questioning side, and what to do after a search warrant deals with the search itself.
NSW has built its own State scheme covering the same ground, which we have written about in digital evidence access orders in NSW. The two operate side by side. Which one a person is facing depends on who is investigating and under what warrant.
What happens if you refuse to comply with a section 3LA order?
There are two offences, and the gap between them is large.
The basic offence applies where a person is subject to an order, is capable of complying with a requirement in it, omits to do an act, and that omission contravenes the requirement. The penalty is imprisonment for 5 years or 300 penalty units, or both.
The aggravated offence adds one element: the offence to which the relevant warrant relates is a serious offence or a serious terrorism offence. The penalty then becomes imprisonment for 10 years or 600 penalty units, or both. The AFP put the fine at $133,200.
The threshold for the aggravated form is set very low. Section 3C defines a serious offence as one punishable by imprisonment for 2 years or more that is a Commonwealth offence, a State offence with a federal aspect, or a Territory offence, and that is not a serious terrorism offence. Almost any warrant in a drug, fraud or organised crime investigation clears 2 years. In practice, the 10 year form is the ordinary one, and the 5 year form is the exception.
Note what the prosecution has to prove. The person must be capable of complying. Genuine inability is not the offence. A person who has forgotten a passcode, or who never held it, is in a different position from a person who holds it and declines. That distinction is often the only live issue on a 3LA count, and it is a question of evidence rather than assertion.
Where this leaves an Ironside brief.
The AFP reported on 17 July 2026 that Operation Ironside has produced charges against almost 400 people in Australia covering more than 2300 offences, and that more than 60 of those dealt with by the courts have been sentenced. Many of those matters are still running. Every person charged is presumed innocent, and nothing in the High Court decision changes that.
What has changed is where the defence work sits. The wholesale challenge is finished. The remaining questions are the ordinary ones, and they are the better ones: attribution of a handset to a person, the reliability of the message set produced, what a given exchange actually means read in full rather than in extract, and whether the elements of each count are made out on the material tendered. Ironside briefs also tend to carry companion charges of the kind we have covered in money laundering under Division 400, Commonwealth drug importation, possessing proceeds of crime and participating in a criminal group.
There is also a sentencing point that the July decision illustrates. A section 43 count and a 3LA count are not about the underlying drug or money offending at all. They are about what happened after the investigation reached the person. Conduct after the fact is capable of aggravating a sentence in a way the original conduct never would, and it is the part of a case a person still has some control over on the day police arrive.
The advice that follows from all of this is dull and it is correct. Take legal advice before responding to a warrant, before answering questions, and before deciding what to do about a device. That is a much shorter conversation than the one that follows a section 43 charge.
Frequently asked.
What was Operation Ironside and how did AN0M work?
Operation Ironside was a covert AFP and FBI investigation running from October 2018 to June 2021. Law enforcement secretly controlled an encrypted messaging platform called AN0M, sold on the black market as a secure criminal communications device. The High Court described the mechanism in CD v Commonwealth [2025] HCA 37: when a user pressed send, a second message was created containing a copy of the first message plus metadata, and that copy was made available on a server the AFP could access. The user did not know.
Is AN0M evidence admissible in Australian courts?
Yes. The Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of South Australia held that the AN0M system did not involve interception of a communication passing over a telecommunications system contrary to section 7(1) of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth). Parliament then passed the Surveillance Legislation (Confirmation of Application) Act 2024 (Cth), deeming material obtained under the specified AFP warrants to have been lawfully obtained. The High Court upheld that Act in CD v Commonwealth [2025] HCA 37 on 8 October 2025.
What did the High Court decide in CD v Commonwealth?
The High Court unanimously held that the Surveillance Legislation (Confirmation of Application) Act 2024 (Cth) is not invalid. It rejected both grounds argued: that the Act was an impermissible exercise by Parliament of the judicial power of the Commonwealth, and that it impermissibly interfered with the institutional integrity of courts vested with federal jurisdiction. The appeal from the South Australian Court of Appeal then became moot and special leave was revoked.
What is attempting to pervert the course of justice under Commonwealth law?
Section 43(1) of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) makes it an offence to attempt to obstruct, prevent, pervert or defeat the course of justice in relation to the judicial power of the Commonwealth. The maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment. Absolute liability applies to the element that the judicial power concerned is the judicial power of the Commonwealth, and the conduct must be more than merely preparatory. The State equivalent in NSW is section 319 of the Crimes Act 1900.
Can police force you to unlock your phone in Australia?
Not by asking. Under section 3LA of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) a constable may apply to a magistrate for an order requiring a specified person to provide information or assistance that is reasonable and necessary to allow access to data held in or accessible from a computer or data storage device. Once a magistrate makes that order, refusing to comply is an offence. In NSW there is a separate State scheme of digital evidence access orders.
What happens if you refuse to comply with a section 3LA order?
The basic offence carries 5 years imprisonment or 300 penalty units, or both. Where the offence to which the relevant warrant relates is a serious offence or a serious terrorism offence, the maximum rises to 10 years imprisonment or 600 penalty units, or both. The AFP put the fine figure at $133,200. The offence is one of omission, so the prosecution must prove the person was capable of complying and omitted to do an act contrary to the order.
What counts as a serious offence for a section 3LA order?
Section 3C of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) defines a serious offence as one punishable by imprisonment for 2 years or more that is a Commonwealth offence, a State offence with a federal aspect, or a Territory offence, and that is not a serious terrorism offence. The 2 year threshold is low, so most warrants in a drug, fraud or organised crime investigation will engage the higher 10 year penalty rather than the 5 year one.
How many people have been charged under Operation Ironside?
The AFP reported on 17 July 2026 that Operation Ironside has led to almost 400 people in Australia being charged with more than 2300 offences, including drug trafficking, money laundering and dealing in the proceeds of crime, and that more than 60 of those dealt with by the courts have been sentenced. Many Ironside matters remain before the courts, and every person charged is presumed innocent.
To speak to a criminal defence lawyer, call Aaron Kernaghan on 0421 717 019.
This article is written by Aaron Kernaghan, criminal defence lawyer at Good Legal Lawyers, as at 21 July 2026. It is commentary and reflects the personal opinion of the author only. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for advice on your own matter, and it does not purport to be accurate or complete. The Western Australian sentence referred to is reported as announced by the Australian Federal Police and the person concerned is not named here. Any matter referred to may be before the court and any person charged is presumed innocent. For advice on a specific matter, contact Aaron Kernaghan on 0421 717 019 or contact the firm.
More criminal-law commentary by Aaron Kernaghan.
Sources: CD v The Commonwealth of Australia [2025] HCA 37 (High Court of Australia) · High Court judgment summary, 8 October 2025 · CD v The Commonwealth of Australia on JADE · Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), compilation C2026C00086 in force 18 February 2026, ss 3C, 3LA, 43 · Surveillance Legislation (Confirmation of Application) Bill 2024, Parliamentary Library Bills Digest · AFP media release, 17 July 2026