Greens Senator, Scott Ludlam, believes that the Labor Party will soon roll-over on data retention, and will instead side with the Government in passing legislation requiring internet providers to store customers’ metadata for two years:
Speaking to the IT Leaders Forum, a weekend conference for technology media. Ludlam said the opposition is likely to “send a few good, stout-hearted people out to make statements” before caving in.
Ludlam put the position that data retention is driven by politics…
Ludlam said the point of the Greens’ opposition to the bill centres around how to create a regime in which data retention is targeted and discriminate, to overcome an access regime in which he said too many agencies outside the law enforcement community can make requests for data.
While Ludlam said he sees it as reasonable for law enforcement to request basic subscriber data without a warrant, “we have a broken access regime, we have a broken authorisation regime”.
Sadly, I think Ludlam is right and Labor will cave in.
We should not forget that just a few years back its then Communications Minister, Senator Conroy, championed greater censorship and controls on internet use. The Gillard Government also drafted plans to require companies to store customer data for two years to make it easier for security agencies to check on an individual’s use of email, social media, the web and mobile phone services before backing down amid objections from civil libertarians and then shadow Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.
Prime Minister Abbott has also worked hard to wedge Labor by claiming that data retention is essential to fight terrorism and child pornography. In turn, Labor risks being labelled as soft on terrorists and child offenders if it opposes the legislation.
Ultimately, Australians will be left to pick-up the tab for an expensive scheme that is easily circumvented by would-be perpetrators via a virtual private network (VPN) or a number of other means.
It would also create a honeypot for hackers, lawyers and other industry players seeking frivolous law suites on behalf of digital rights holders.
As noted in the above video from the ABC’s Download this Show, which features a former police employee who has worked extensively with metadata, the whole scheme is open for abuse:
“Australian people are being sleepwalked into a system the Attorney-General cannot even articulate…
I also think there needs to be a standardised reporting of access. We report the number of requests, but not the number or the type of requests made”.
Put simply, the policy should be reconsidered before everyone’s internet costs are forced up, civil liberties and privacy reduced, and all kinds of frivolous activities from hackers and lawyers emerge.
