Telcos Aren’t Prepared For Metadata Retention

The Australia metadata retention law was previously passed through the country’s parliament by the then communications minister, now prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull who described it at the time as a crucial security measure for both law agencies and counter terrorism.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has been a vocal opponent of the legislation all along and remains so.

Senator Brandis said there are no legal impediments for the NSW government to legislate to hold someone for 28 days without charge, but there may be for the Commonwealth.

“There are only 15 sitting days left in this calendar year, in this parliamentary year, and there is no sign of that bill”.

Ironically, two years later when Tony Abbott and new Attorney General George Brandis reintroduced the data retention scheme, Mr Turnbull would be tasked with helping to create the full scheme.

The PWC report, which was commissioned by the Attorney-General’s Department, has found the upfront cost of the metadata retention regime is between $188.8 and $319 million. “My prediction – they will keep adding agencies, services, types of data”.

“It is a disaster waiting to happen”.

There’s also the questions of who will have access to the data, whether it will be stored here or off-shore and how it will be encrypted.

“All providers are still waiting to hear from Government as to how it will apportion the $131.3 million that has been pledged in assistance to partially meet the set-up costs that service providers – and ultimately their customers – are facing as a result of the regime”, he said.

“That is, in the government’s judgment, a reasonable contribution to those costs”.

Under provisions of the Act, telcos and ISPs will be mandated to retain a range of customer data for 24 months.

“It would also lesson the risks of security breaches leading to unlawful disclosure of people’s personal and private information”, said Patton. “This is especially unfortunate for rural internet consumers who rely on local ISPs because they offer a specialised and personalised service”.

“My overall concerns are we’ve got a scheme that is costing in exccess of $300 million that is formidably hard for industry to implement, that may bankrupt smaller ISPs, that can be defeated in about 60 seconds by downloading an app that costs less than a dollar”, he said.

Livingstone revealed that Telstra has had its plans for its data retention implementation approved.

Telecommunications industry lobby group Communications Alliance has conducted a survey to find out how many Internet service providers across Australia are willing to work according to the metadata legislation, which came into force Tuesday.

About 80 percent of the providers are exercising an option to take 18 months to fully comply as long as an implementation plan has been submitted.

Telecommunications providers in the United Kingdom retain metadata for a minimum of one year, although the UK’s High Court ruled in July that aspects of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act, were unlawful. The public hotspots are not included in the data retention scheme however it can be risky to use public WiFi hotspots.

“While I expected my home and workplace to show up pretty clearly, I was shocked at a few of the insights people were able to glean from the data”, the ABC’s Will Ockenden said after the experiment.