Government said to shelve data retention issue

The federal government plans to introduce proposed new legislative reforms this week to give intelligence and law enforcement agencies more powers to access digital data. But mandatory data retention will reportedly not be among them.

The government does not plan to propose a data retention scheme at this stage, even though the reform is highly sought after by spies and police, a senior source told Fairfax Media.

ASIO and the AFP have been calling for legislation requiring telecom service providers to store information such as the records of calls, texts and emails for up to two years.

But the government is reportedly waiting on the recommendations of a Senate inquiry that is examining the data retention issue and may recommend against the proposal.

Labor shelved any plans to introduce data retention legislation while it was still in office after a previous parliamentary inquiry declared that the issue had such major privacy implications that more investigation is required.

The proposed new powers to be introduced by Attorney-General George Brandis this week are expected to include allowing intelligence agencies to hack into a third party’s computer to access a target computer.

Another proposed reform is expected to involve allowing intelligence agencies to infiltrate entire computer networks with a single court warrant.

The Attorney-General’s office has also previously revealed it is considering making it a criminal offence not to hand over encryption keys when asked by law enforcement, anti-corruption and national security agencies.

Image courtesy of AJ Cann under CC