Over the past few months, Australians’ civil rights have come under attack.
In April, the government’s data retention law came into effect. The law requires telecommunications companies to store customer metadata for at least two years. metadata from our phone calls, text messages, emails, and Internet activity is now tracked by the government and accessible by intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
Ironically, the law came into effect only a few weeks before australia marked Privacy Awareness Week. Alarmingly, it is part of a broad trend of eroding civil rights in Western democracies, most noticeably evident by the passage of the Investigatory Powers Act in the UK, and the decision to repeal the Internet Privacy Law in the US.
australia’s data retention law is one of the most comprehensive and intrusive data collection schemes in the western world. There are several reasons why Australians should challenge this law.
First, it undermines the democratic principles on which Australia was founded. It gravely harms individuals’ right to privacy, anonymity, and protection from having their personal information collected.
The Australian Privacy Principles define limited conditions under which the collection of personal information is permissible. It says personal information must be collected by “fair” means.
Despite a recent ruling by the Federal Court, which determined that our metadata does not constitute “personal information”, we should consider whether sweeping collection of all of Australian citizenry’s metadata is consistent with our right to privacy.
Second, metadata – data about data – can be highly revealing and provide a comprehensive depiction of our daily activities, communications and movements.
As detailed here, metadata is broad in scope and can tell more about us than the actual content of our communications. Therefore, claims that the data retention law does not seriously compromise our privacy should be considered as naïve, ill-informed, or dishonest.
Third, the law is justified by the need to protect Australians from terrorist acts. However, despite the government’s warnings, the risk of getting hurt in a terrorist attack in Australia has been historically, and is today, extremely low.
