Following his embarrassing attempt in August to explain the Government’s plan to require telecommunications companies to store detailed information about the calls and internet use of its customers for two years, Attorney-General, George Brandis, appeared on ABC’s Q&A program last night (video above) seeking to soothe voters’ concerns about data retention, claiming that the metadata collected would only be used on the “most serious crime” and would not be used in civil suites, like illegal downloading:
“They [metadata] can’t be [used against unauthorised downloading], and they won’t be. And Commissioner Colvin has corrected his remarks…
The mandatory metadata retention scheme applies only to the most serious crime – to terrorism, to international and trans-national organised crime, to pedophilia – where the use of metadata has been particularly useful as an investigative tool. Only to crime and only to the highest levels of crime. Breach of copyright is a civil wrong [and] civil wrongs have nothing to do with this scheme”.
Of course, Brandis’ comments on Q&A contradict those of Australian Federal Police commissioner, Andrew Colvin, whose statement on 30 October was unequivocal by using the word “absolutely” when asked whether metatdata could be used to pursue unauthorised downloaders.
It also contradicts Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull’s, admission that film studios could ask the courts for access to metadata in order to sue illegal downloaders.
Already, lawyers are gathering, telling the ABC’s PM program that metadata could be demanded in a whole range of civil law cases, including family law, insurance and copyright. So effectively, the Government has created a honeypot for the legal profession – something we should all be concerned about.
I won’t go into all of the reasons why data retention is a bad idea – e.g. the plan’s exorbitant costs and civil liberties breaches – since these were covered last week. All I will say is that the Government needs to do a much better job in making the case for why data retention is needed and selling the plan to the Australian people.
As it currently stands, the Abbott Government appears totally confused about its metadata scheme, which doesn’t instill faith that they have thought the plan through.
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