Data retention laws pass Federal Parliament as Coalition and Labor vote together By political correspondent Emma Griffiths Updated about an hour agoMAP: Australia
Contentious data retention laws have passed Federal Parliament, with both major parties voting for the legislation in the Senate.What is metadata?
What is metadata and how might it impact whistleblowers in media and politics?
The laws will force telecommunications providers to keep records of phone and internet use for two years and allow security agencies to access the records.Companies already retain the data but for varying durations and in an unregulated environment.
The Coalition and Labor have argued the laws were necessary to help authorities in counter-terrorism and serious crime investigations.
Both major parties knocked back several amendments put forward by the Greens and concerned crossbenchers during Senate deliberations.
Labor announced last week that it would vote with the Coalition after the two parties agreed to several amendments, including specific protections for the phone and internet records of journalists, in a bid to protect anonymous sources and whistleblowers.
VIDEO: Greens senator Scott Ludlam tells the ALP and the Government “you will be judged for this” during the final metadata debate.
The Greens argued strongly against the law, saying it would entrench “passive, mass surveillance”.Senators Nick Xenophon and David Leyonhjelm had also sought to change the legislation to increase privacy protections.
But Attorney-General George Brandis said the legislation, which passed with 43 votes to 16, would strike the right balance.
“It does contain safeguards that were not there before, it is in the Government’s view, shared I’m pleased to say by the Opposition, a measured and proportionate response,” he said.
The cost of retaining the information is set to be partly covered by the taxpayer in what the Government described as a “significant” contribution.
There are concerns telecommunications companies will pass on the rest of the cost to consumers.
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014
Introduced to Parliament on October 30 and redrafted on the advice of the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (which tabled its report on February 27). The legislation will:
Require telecommunications companies to retain customer’s phone and computer metadata for 2 years
Define which types of data must be retained, such as phone numbers, length of phone calls, email addresses and the time a message was sent, but not the content of phone calls or emails and explicitly exclude internet browsing
Detail which agencies are able to access the data
Give security agencies access to the data when they can make a case that it is “reasonably necessary” to an investigation
Still require security agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing the actual content of messages or conversations
Introduce an independent oversight mechanism, allowing the Commonwealth Ombudsman access to agency records, in a bid to boost privacy protections
Give the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security oversight of the use of metadata by the AFP and ASIO
The Government is negotiating with telcos about who will pay for the new system
Use TVersity for streaming media around your house. It is fkg awesome and cheap. Does transcoding, the lot.
Upon reflection, I feel like the analogy had already been taken as far as it could go before I made that last post.
reflection on a mirror in the house?
And it’s not like there’s even any illegal contents inside the house. It just contains maps to other houses.
Upon reflection, I feel like the analogy had already been taken as far as it could go before I made that last post.
It's more they're taking the numbers off the front of the house. The house is still there, but finding it has now gone from easy to mildly inconvenient.
Almost, except the owner of the house has already advised all those who will be impacted that they have a different number that only they can use. The average drive by won’t show up but those who need to get there have the address.
It’s more they’re taking the numbers off the front of the house. The house is still there, but finding it has now gone from easy to mildly inconvenient.
.As I understand it they’ll only be blocking the address on the front of the website envelope and not the letter inside the envelope.
Their kids and certain family members must â– â– â– â– â– â– hate them
So it's all optics really.I struggle reading this early in the morning, but are they essentially saying, “we’re tackling piracy. Good on us!..But the rights holders actually have to be the ones to pay to have their pirated content blocked.”
As it should be, they get enough of a free ride from the Government in how they bring their legal stuff in to Aus in the first place. The taxpayers sure as heck shouldn’t be paying for it.
BTW “rights holders” are the big Hollywood and music studios, not the artists.
and costs will get added onto price which the public have to bear, so an indirect tax.
Speak for yourself.Remember when they wanted to block paedophilia sites and it couldn't get through parliament, but now it's come down to copyright infringement protection for rights holders and it gets through...Pedophiles have a right to get their assets protected.
Remember when they wanted to block paedophilia sites and it couldn't get through parliament, but now it's come down to copyright infringement protection for rights holders and it gets through...
Rights Holders pour a lot of money into pollies coffers, of course it will get through.
Remember when they wanted to block paedophilia sites and it couldn't get through parliament, but now it's come down to copyright infringement protection for rights holders and it gets through...Pedophiles have a right to get their assets protected.
Remember when they wanted to block paedophilia sites and it couldn’t get through parliament, but now it’s come down to copyright infringement protection for rights holders and it gets through…
Yeah, this worked all so well in the UK…
I wonder how long until this ISP blocking starts to creep to things other than “copyright infringers”.
So it's all optics really.I struggle reading this early in the morning, but are they essentially saying, “we’re tackling piracy. Good on us!..But the rights holders actually have to be the ones to pay to have their pirated content blocked.”
As it should be, they get enough of a free ride from the Government in how they bring their legal stuff in to Aus in the first place. The taxpayers sure as heck shouldn’t be paying for it.
BTW “rights holders” are the big Hollywood and music studios, not the artists.
And also, the internet will find a way around all this anyway.
So it’s all optics really.
I struggle reading this early in the morning, but are they essentially saying, “we’re tackling piracy. Good on us!..But the rights holders actually have to be the ones to pay to have their pirated content blocked.”
They cannot block TPB, they are now hiding behind multiple proxy’s and are virtually unblockable.
But yeah VPN’s will also completely defeat this effort.
Tried manufacturer’s. Tried generic. Nada.
In the meantime all my efforts have created a drastic improvement in the wifi performance on my gf’s laptops and both of our mobile devices.