Data Retention and Law Enforcement Access
Friday 18 July 2014 @ 12.49 p.m. | Crime | IP & Media | Legal Research
Attorney-General George Brandis has said (on 17 July 2014) that forcing internet service providers to retain customer data for up to two years for access by law enforcement agencies is under "active consideration" by the government, however, nothing has yet been decided in terms of action.
Background to Data Retention
Brandis' statement follows the UK government rushing emergency laws through parliament on 11 July 2014 to ensure police and security services continue to have access to phone and internet records.
The UK move follows a court decision that a European Union directive which forces companies to retain communications logs is unlawful and infringed human rights. The recent ruling by the European Court of Justice removed the obligation of British data companies to retain records.
British prime minister David Cameron says urgent action is needed to protect the public from criminals, terrorists and paedophiles:
"We face real and credible threats to our security from serious and organised crime, from the activity of paedophiles, from the collapse of Syria, the growth of Isis in Iraq and Al Shabaab in East Africa."
Civil libertarians are up in arms with the UK laws following the recent phone-hacking scandal which saw royals, celebrities and victims of crime among those to have phones hacked by the News of the World tabloid.
Australian Effects
The last report from the Attorney-General's Department revealed that in Australia, a wide range of local, state, and federal government agencies accessed telecommunications customer data 319,874 times in the 2012-2013 financial year.
The data, which the government prefers to describe as "metadata", is a comprehensive history of the time, date, location, and recipient information about telephone calls, emails, and other communications. A warrant is not required to access the data because agencies argue that telecommunications customer data does not include content. Government agencies have been arguing that telecommunications companies should be required to store this data for up to two years, but a parliamentary committee report last year left the decision on data retention to the government.
With the introduction of the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 yesterday in Federal Parliament, Brandis stated:
"The question of data retention is under active consideration by the government. I might point out to you as recently as yesterday, the House of Commons passed a new data retention statute. This is very much the way in which western nations are going."
Brandis also pointed to the recently thrown out EU directive as evidence of the regime existing in other parts of the world, but said Australia was undecided at this stage.
"It has been the case in Europe under the European data retention directive for some little while now. It's not a decision Australia has yet made. It is not a matter that the Australian government has decided to do, but it is true to say it is under active consideration."
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten also indicated that Labor would consider supporting data retention legislation provided that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor was retained. The Coalition had originally planned to axe this position, but Brandis announced that the role would now be retained.
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