There's even odds it's a response to the Gemalto hack; all three major AUS MNOs use Gemalto SIM cards, and at the time only NSA and GCHQ were specifically called out as being involved, not ASD. Canberra might be feeling a bit left out there. Alternatively, they might be afraid that PLA's Third Department have also compromised Gemalto or other upstream hardware providers, since Australia and China are in each other's region of interest.
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There's even odds it's a response to the Gemalto hack; all three major AUS MNOs use Gemalto SIM cards, and at the time only NSA and GCHQ were specifically called out as being involved, not ASD. Canberra might be feeling a bit left out there. Alternatively, they might be afraid that PLA's Third Department have also compromised Gemalto or other upstream hardware providers, since Australia and China are in each other's region of interest.