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Australia's Privacy Boss Slams Gov't Data-Retention Scheme
mask.of.sanity writes "The Australian Government's privacy commissioner has slammed its plans to implement a data retention scheme, in which it would ask telcos and internet providers to store the browsing and calling logs of Australian subscribers. He said the scheme would put user privacy in jeopardy because data will lie around at the behest of law enforcement. The Aussie scheme would be based on that which exists in Europe under the EU Directive. The directive aims to give law enforcement authorities the ability to ascertain the identity of a person using a public network to communicate by mobile, fixed line, email, or internet. The directive defines 'data' to be collected as 'traffic data and location data and the related data necessary to identify the subscriber or user.'"
data retention scheme? Personally I trust the Aussie government more than Google.
First the Great Firewall of Australia and now this. One step forward (ie NBN) and two steps backward.
... which is to say record labels and motion picture companies.
If he was in the U.S. He would be canned soon. It's nice to see someone fighting the good fight. Hope he keeps on keeping on.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
This dragnet approach is pretty pointless. All it does is cost people time and money.
With the amount of browsing I do I would probably be able to look at my entire history and find illegal things I have accidentally or unintentionally stumbled across over the years, not to mention what kind of traffic I have generated when I have got the odd virus/worm.
It doesn't really protect the community either as anyone who wants to go to the trouble of hiding what they do online can do so very simply so in sense something like this is akin to listening to everyone's phone conversations and not realising the people you are trying to get are sending each other letters.
Australia really needs a Bill of Rights created, and in this day and age of Communications and identity it strongly worded to protect peoples individuals rights online from government, corporate and other individuals.
I very much doubt that the Greens will vote for this. The Liberal/National coalition will support the idea, but will be compelled to vote against it just to annoy the Labor government (although once it gets publicly linked to those kiddy-porn loving, WMD-owning, union-member, terrorist boat-people then that might give the Coalition the excuse to vote for it).
This is not only an invasion of privacy, but it is also an incredible burden on the businesses who must retain the records. Having a mountain of data is only useful for fishing expeditions.
The right way to do this would be to allow for monitoring with the blessing of a warrant. If that is not enough, there is likely an overreach of law enforcement and it should be curtailed immediately.
It's probably important to note that the EU Directive specifically mandates that
the government doesn't listen.... again?
You want to see what I view on the internet, man? I will show you things, man. Crazy things, man. Things you never even dreamed of, man. Your mind won't be able to handle it, man! Game over, man! Game OVER, man!
Moggy : Gosh Big Bro,you sure know alot.
Mogster : Yeah, I know.
I have an option to move back to Australia, my home .. or stay abroad. If this goes ahead, goodbye Australia. The country is being run by a bunch of morons. *cough* conroy *cough*
Moggy : Gosh Big Bro, you sure know alot.
Mogster : Yeah, I know.
Whether you think it's valid or not, I implore the international community to ignore anything our government says/does about the internet.
Thank you.
Once again australia seems to be the most third world backwards country outside of the usual crop
onya aussies
...for an Australian government of any stripe to take a bad idea from another country and repeat it here, as if it'll somehow work out all right this time. Nobody ever learns from anyone else's mistakes - which is probably why history keeps repeating itself.
Just arrange an echelon feed...
Thank god our elected representatives know what they are talking about.
How does this work when most email sites (at least gmail) now use https by default. They cant possibly log that. Or will they at one point force isps to do man in the middle. That way you will never get a valid certificate and know when you are giving away your login to the wrong website...
With https this would be really useless anyways. Unless they force ISPs to do a man in the middle attack. But then now everyone there would be really open to fake websites, because people would just get used to getting a false certificate warning on every page (much like if you browse on rogers's 3g network in canada...)
They are watching...
Just wait for the NBN to make this even easier.
Gillard really should have lost the election, but the right-wing opposition party was lead by Tony Abbott; a pro-business anti-worker fundamentalist misogynist racist buffoon firmly in the pockets of big business and the tobacco industry, but an economic ignorance that was laughable. Every time Abbott opened his mouth he drove voters away. Like Palin in America, when a right-wing party is out of office they get captured by the crazies and swing further to the right thinking that will win them more voters. Of course it doesn't, and Abbott lost.
And so Gillard won by default... and now the filter is back. You would think the opposition would kick out Abbott and put in someone more centrist, but they refuse to admit they made a mistake and they're clinging on to him. Meanwhile the censorship regime rolls on. Both parties are pro-censorship. What are we to do?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/gillard-ushers-in-the-era-of-farce/story-e6frfhqf-1225896276726
The Privacy Commissioner might mean well - but will most likely be overruled by the powers that be. Despite breaching the Privacy Act the Australia Card collected and collated private data - in breach of the law. Until publicly embarrassed by whistle-blowing IT staff (disclosure - I was one of them) several government data bases were mined, including the one created by Xerox from the birth and death records. Yes it was stopped - but (Packer's) Data Warehouse was never prosecuted or forced to destroy the records they made off with.
Given the size of the Australian gambling industry's, and the US funded Christian right's, lobbying fund for promoting the internet censoring plans - I very much doubt the latest plans will be stymied.
Cue Neil Young's "Revolution Blues"
Ozzie here. I swear I have been having more trouble with my email since I've begun encrypting everything. I'd swear these Gestapo bastards are using these laws retrospectively and have been forcing ISPs to do this for some time. I am ashamed to be an Australian. Every year we take a step closer to the steep cliff of tyranny.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
('wowser' is a uniquely Aussie term for a strong supporter of interventionist government policy).
Any discussion of online privacy/retention/etc tends to be one-sided, from my experience so far, largely because wowsers seem to be almost universally technology-illiterate. If the government proposed to keep a photocopy of every letter you ever received or sent, there'd be a howling outcry (well actually probably not, since the only people that send letters any more are government agencies and utility companies, but you get the picture).
In discussions on the Conroy Filter, any explanations about how it won't work tends to fall on deaf ears, or gets the standard Conroy response of 'so you propose we do nothing then?', and the assumption is that the internet is full of vile perverts who should be castrated. The point being that the debate is not on technical feasibility, or even benefits, but on perceived moral stance.
With any opposition to government surveillance, the standard response of 'if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide' should be ringing across the ether...except it appears that no-one who knows enough to comment on this issue is ignorant enough to declare that (well, not as many as you'd expect).
So it seems there's a Digital Divide right there...if the debate is pitched in terms of details and technical specifics, it only attracts knowledgeable commentary, and that tends to be broadly anti-censorship and pro-privacy. If the debate is pitched in simple terms, it attracts wowsers.
Which would suggest that wowsers tend to be older, since young people are more familiar with technology? Or is it education?
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
Here's an example of such data as captured from a potential terrorrrrrrirst:
Traffic: All goes to suckitup.is
Location: Roaming wifi
Related data: The Fifth of November
Somebody gets a clue about the impact of data retention. If only somebody with enough cloud in the EU will take the same stance...
Disclaimer: This opinion was created without the use of any facts
Either (a) no one's made a comment in 3 hours since this story was posted, or (b) something's glitched up on Slashdot and this won't go through.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
and the related data necessary to identify the subscriber or user
And what better way to identify beyond reasonable doubt who the user is than to save all emails to check for signatures, record all calls to compare voices, and so on. Right?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Note that the EU directive is being fought - successfully - by activist in individual countries. In March, Germany ruled the directive to be unconstitutional:
From the linked article dated March 10, 2010: Last week, the German Constitutional Court issued a much-anticipated decision, striking down its data retention law as violating human rights. It was an important victory for Europe’s Freedom Not Fear movement, which was formed to oppose the EU Data Retention Directive. But it was also a reminder of the political work which remains to be done to defeat it.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I blame WD, Seagate, et al. Now that you can buy 1TB drives for less than $50, and single drives up to (and soon exceeding) 3TB, it is easy and relatively inexpensive to archive everything the users do. Soon, if storage continues to be cheaper per TB, it may become possible, even mandantory to log every keystroke. Of course, there will always be excluded classes, politically and economically, from such laws. But then I'm a cynical old fart, who has seen technology become increasingly invasive, and privacy fleeting.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Thank-you Timothy Pilgrim for this statement I will listen to you intently in the future.
Are there any Europeans who can offer an opinion on their system?
Judging from the TFA this Timothy Pilgrim sounds like a reasonable guy.
Using the phrase "privacy boss" is probably a bit strong though for the head of an organisation that only regulates existing legislation. They only advise the government on new policy, which of course they can ignore. Data retention will obviously save children and stop the terrorists so I suspect that will be the case here.
I wasn't aware that the privacy commissioner actually had any power. Perhaps he's just realised, and that's why he's grumpy.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
We have a similar law in Canada, whereby law enforcement can review a person's web browsing (and email?) for up to two years.
I see a business model for selling anonymous web browsing via proxy servers.
Commercial proxy servers already exist to get around Hulu barriers and the like.
If such servers market themselves as "anonymous," they should find more paying customers.
/. screwed up.
"People kill people, Guns don't kill people", sounds familiar ?
Don't shoot the hard-drive manufacturers because their products get abused by another totalarian government.
It's still those "for the citizens" which demand these draconian rules of data retention, not Seagate, WD or any company making storage cheaper.
Technology has become to a fase where it's being used against us all, should we therefor blame Intel, Asus and all the mainboard manufacturers in the same time?
Our own (elected) people, with their own agenda, are turning against us in any form of politics; that's where the problems lie at.
Privacy doesn't exist anymore, it's an utopia in almost any part of the world.
The only privacy you've really got, for now, is between your ears.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..