Federal Government introduces legislation for controversial data retention plan

Updated

Information about phone and computer use would be kept by telecommunications companies for two years, under new counter-terrorism legislation introduced to federal Parliament this morning.

Intelligence and security agencies say the information - or metadata - is crucial to solving crimes and the current laws needs to be updated.

Telecommunications companies already store metadata for billing purposes, but Communications Minister Turnbull said some businesses are keeping the records for shorter periods of time.

He said the lack of a legal requirement to keep the information was leading to some criminal investigations "failing".

"For example, in a current major child exploitation investigation, the AFP has been unable to identify 156 out of 463 potential suspects because certain internet service providers do not retain the necessary IP address allocation records," he said.

The information to be stored includes IP addresses of websites visited, but not the exact content of web browsing.

What the Government says about 'metadata' and 'content'

For web browsing, "content" is anything user generated, e.g.: typing in a URL, clicking through to links or a Google search.

"Metadata" is information the system automatically puts in around the user-generated content, e.g.: IP addresses, number of visits to a site and length of time on a page.

An IP address viewed in the metadata would show a person visited a certain website, but would not show what specific pages they visited there, if they wrote anything there or viewed videos.

Currently, authorities can request access to metadata from telcos/ISPs, but they require a warrant for access to "content".

Read the full explanation

Mr Turnbull described metadata as "information about a communication but not its content", stressing that access to content would require a warrant.

"Access to metadata plays a central role in almost every counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, cybersecurity, organised crime investigation," he told Parliament.

"It is also used in almost all serious criminal investigations, including investigations into murder, serious sexual assaults, drug trafficking and kidnapping."

AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin said the laws, if passed could "absolutely" help authorities target those who illegally download content.

"Illegal downloads ... cyber crimes, cyber security, all these matters, our ability to investigate them is absolutely pinned to our ability to retrieve and use metadata," he said.

Attorney-General George Brandis said the information to be kept included:

the identity of the subscriber to a service

the source and destination of a communication

the date, time and duration

the type of communication

the location of the equipment used

It is understood the Government is expecting the legislation will not be voted on until early next year, after it has been examined by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Security.

Mr Turnbull said the cost of retaining the information would be partly met by a "substantial contribution" from the Government.

"There are ballpark figures being thrown around but they are at this stage not of sufficient accuracy for me to be citing at the moment," he said.

"There area number of estimates and the estimates are getting more accurate."

The Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said customers and taxpayers would end up footing the bill.

"It's effectively a new surveillance tax and they won't tell us how much it's going to cost," Mr Ludlam said.

'Complex and controversial'

The Greens have strongly campaigned against the move, citing privacy concerns.

"The intelligence agencies would probably like us all to be carrying little cameras around on our backs recording everything we do," Mr Ludlum said.

"We don't do that, because Australia's not a police state... at some point, you've got to draw a line - we are drawing a line at mandatory data retention in this country."

Labor's Jason Clare said the idea was "complex and controversial" and needed to be carefully scrutinised due to legitimate privacy concerns.

Expert in constitutional law, University of New South Wale's George Williams, said it was unfortunate the Government's legislation was not precise about certain matters.

Mr Williams said there was no definition in the legislation about what metadata actually was.

"If you look at the definition in the legislation it's simply information that is prescribed by the regulations, so all we've got is a shell at the moment, and as yet the Government hasn't actually clarified exactly what information will be retained."

Brandis addresses penalty for disclosing information concerns

Senator Brandis has also sought to address belated concerns from the Labor Party about a provision in earlier counter-terror legislation, that could affect journalists.

The National Security Legislation Amendment Bill passed parliament, with Opposition support, at the beginning of October.

It increases the penalty for disclosing information about a special intelligence operation to a maximum of five years imprisonment, and 10 years if the person intended to endanger someone.

Yesterday, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten wrote to Prime Minister Tony Abbott noting the concerns that it could capture journalists and asking that the laws be reviewed.

"It's clear that upon passing the legislation and subsequent serious contributions from a range of people that in fact maybe we need to have a second look at this," Mr Shorten said this morning.

Senator Brandis has today given a direction to the the Director of Public Prosecutions that any possible prosecution of a journalist under that law would have to be consented to by the Attorney-General of the day.

He said the direction could be revoked by an Attorney-General at any time, but defended the measures as a "very powerful, practical safeguard".

But he said the chance of a journalist ever being prosecuted is a "fanciful notion".

The move has failed to dampen the Opposition Leader's concerns.

"I'm not excited about having George Brandis deciding the fate of freedom of speech in this country," Mr Shorten said.

Topics: federal-government, federal-parliament, information-and-communication, laws, canberra-2600

First posted