Internet Australia wants new data retention inquiry

Internet Australia (IA) has called on the federal government to institute a new parliamentary inquiry into the Data Retention Act.

IA’s CEO Laurie Patton is critical of a government call for submissions for a radical expansion of the controversial scheme. Under the proposal, what was initially designed for criminal investigations could be used in civil court cases.

Patton told the original inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Intelligence and Security that the legislation was “fundamentally flawed” and had been drafted by lawyers who don’t understand how the internet actually works.

“It is a mess,” Patton told the ABC’s 7.30 program. “The only way out of it now is to go back to the beginning, back to the parliamentary inquiry that looked into it in the first place and get them to run the ruler over it.”

Patton said IA is particularly concerned about the privacy implications if the scheme is expanded to include civil matters.

“This takes us into uncharted waters when it comes to using communications technology and personal data in court cases involving private individuals and which have nothing necessarily to do with criminality.”

Noting that there is little information coming from the government in relation to the proposed expansion of the scheme, Patton told the 7.30 program, “It’s concerning because we don’t know who’s after it and why.”

IA has long been critical of the data retention scheme, previously pointing out that the legislation was passed nearly two years ago on the grounds of an urgent need to combat terrorism.

“It hasn’t even come into effect and yet the Attorney-General’s Department apparently wants to see it expanded,” he said.

ISPs are required to have systems in place by April 2017 to retain their customers’ metadata for a two-year period.

However, IA points out that only a minority of ISPs will be compliant and this makes the whole scheme of dubious benefit for its stated purpose of combating terrorism.

The Attorney-General’s Department received applications from 210 ISPs seeking funding to help them meet the costs of compliance, of which 180 were approved.

However, industry estimates of the total number of Australian ISPs range from 250 to more than 400.

“So there are potentially hundreds of ISPs not known to the Attorney-General’s Department, and not all of them will necessarily be collecting and storing the metadata they are required to keep,” said Patton.

“We really don’t know how many. It’s extraordinary that the government didn’t ask the obvious question right up front: how many ISPs are we talking about?”

IA has warned that the costs of the data retention scheme will inevitably be passed onto consumers. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated the cost of compliance to the industry at $738m over the first 10 years.

Patton believes that this underestimates the likely total given that the figure was based on an incomplete list of ISPs.

“Adding civil litigation to the uses of the scheme can only increase the costs borne by ISPs in complying,” he said.

“The government funding is already nowhere near enough. ISPs are out of pocket and they’re unhappy. This exercise has been a disaster from the start, and by the looks of it things are only going to become more controversial.”

Pictured: Internet Australia CEO, Laurie Patton.