In their explanation page, the Australian government said that fears that have been raised for a “Big Brother”-like state where all its citizen’s activities and conversations are monitored is un-true”.
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Under the data-retention laws passed in March, all customer call records, location information, IP addresses, billing information, and other data will be stored for two years, accessible without a warrant by law-enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, 58 per cent of most survey respondents said they had lodged a data retention implementation plan.
“It is no surprise that many service providers won’t be compliant when the legislation comes into force – many of these because they are still waiting to hear from government as to whether their implementation place have been approved”, Stanton said.
And it appears that life would be no better for these ISPs if they actually did understand the legislation: only 10 per cent of those that have got their act together and submitted their data retention implementation paperwork to the Attorney General’s department have had their plans approved.
The Communications Alliance sent an anonymous survey to Australian ISPs, and found that a whopping 84 per cent say they aren’t ready to start collecting metadata from today, according to the ABC.
About 61 per cent said they had lodged an application for exemption/variation or indicated they will still do so.
“The outlay of that AU$131 million has been structured so that it is directed, in particular, to the smaller ISPs, to small businesses, because we acknowledge that the burden on smaller businesses, particularly in relation to their cash flows of compliance with these obligations will fall more heavily, proportionally more heavily, than upon big business”, the Attorney-General said.
“In light of the survey results, the onus remains on Government to work constructively with industry – and not rush to enforcement – over coming months to help providers come into line with what is proving to be a very challenging and somewhat confusing impost on the industry”.
ISPs are not restricted in where they can store the data, which presents a problem when jurisdictions have different privacy legislation to Australia.
“The loss of this capability would be a major blow to our law enforcement agencies and to Australia’s national security”.
The approval of new agencies to the list is at the discretion of the Attorney-General.
“One of the concessions that was made by government is they would introduce mandatory data breach notification laws by the end of the year, so if somebody loses control of your private material, they are obliged to tell you”, he said.
“We continue to discuss the funding for this program with the Government and other stakeholders and we are hopeful that there will be a sensible solution that does not impact on our customers or shareholders”, Telstra said in a statement.
Supporters of the bill said the legislation would help lift law enforcement out of the “dark ages” by enabling agents to subpoena IP information instead of needing a court-ordered warrant, but opponents said expressed concerns that it would create a database of every US internet user that could be used for purposes other than protecting children from pornographers.
The government only has 14 sitting days left in which to introduce the legislation, at which point the bill would go to committee for review, meaning a scheme is unlikely to be operational this year.
What you say on the phone is the content. This is not metadata.
Although a few data is already being retained, the law gives new powers which allow for tracking of specific data including who called and texted and when, to whom and how long for.
Prime Minister and former Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
“Zero [has been spent] as far as I know”, he said.
“Between that and his helpful tips and tricks is a remarkably cavalier approach to everybody else’s privacy, while making sure his own communications are secure”, Ludlam said.
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When Germany introduced mandatory data retention there was a 0.006 percent increase in crime clearance rates.
