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Australia Passes Mandatory Data Retention Law

Posted by timothy on from the what's-in-the-box dept.

Bismillah writes Opposition from the Green Party and independent members of parliament wasn't enough to stop the ruling conservative Liberal-National coalition from passing Australia's new law that will force telcos and ISPs to store customer metadata for at least two years. Journalists' metadata is not exempted from the retention law, but requires a warrant to access. The metadata of everyone else can be accessed by unspecified government agencies without a warrant however.

2 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. A bit more worrisome... by Letophoro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    is that it also makes warrant canaries illegal.

  2. Re:What difference does it make by GumphMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Making the ISP keep it too:

    1. Makes it reliably available for litigation by big media over copyright infringement and removes the ability of ISP to defend customer privacy with inconvenient legal actions or by simply not holding the information. Hosting privacy protecting proxy/VPN services has essentially be outlawed on Australian soil... or will be as the holes in this legislation become evident and the scope creep continues.
    2. Makes it reliably available for abuse by political parties: want to know who leaked the embarrassing x? Simple warrantless search with no oversight.
    --
    Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button