As of Tuesday, 13 October 2015 a new range of laws came into effect requiring Telcos such as Telstra and other carriers to start storing people’s metadata in relation to email, internet, mobile phone use and landline use.
As discussed in last week’s column, this means that your Telco will now be required to store data about who you call, the telephone calls you receive, the location of both parties during such calls, the duration of calls, and similar data in relation to emails, internet usage and text messaging.
One of the more controversial aspects of the new laws is the fact that this information can potentially be accessed without a warrant, which means that there is no system of checks and balances by the judicial system. The absence of a warrant means that there is no Magistrate or Judge who will assess each individual case and determine whether it is appropriate for the relevant authority to access the data in question.
It is important to note that at this stage these laws do not apply to websites that you access (throw back to our article about Ashley Madison users – you need not panic yet).
The rationale behind these laws is to ensure that the relevant authorities can easily access information with regard to suspected national security risks (or to use this decade’s hot word “terrorists”), however the reality is that the same laws apply to every day law abiding citizens.
Despite the opinion of conspiracy theorists however, the government has neither the time nor resources to monitor text messages about ordinary Australian’s social plans or basic interactions between friends or family (let’s face it, they are far too busy staging leadership coups and analysing opinion polls).
The reality is that these laws will likely have very little long term effect on everyday Australian’s using telecommunication devices. An interesting question however is the impact that this will have on piracy laws, and more importantly, enforcement. Now that internet providers are required to store IP addresses, this may provide an opportunity for authorities to more easily access information that identifies people who pirate music, movies and television shows online.
It remains to be seen whether or not metadata retention laws will assist in improving Australia’s national security. The laws are now here however, and every day cyberspace continues to become more and more like the real world.
