Senate considers greater oversight for companies and councils accessing metadata without warrants

Updated

Once considered the domain of senior police and spy agencies, metadata is now being used by dozens of other government agencies for reasons as diverse as prosecuting unlicensed car dealers, investigating dog attacks and forcing doctors to admit to ethical breaches.

Under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, organisations ranging from the RSPCA, Clean Energy Regulator and Racing Queensland can all obtain metadata without a warrant.

All they have to do is fill out a request form and send it directly to telecommunications companies like Telstra, which are obliged by law to hand over the information which can include personal details, call records and IP addresses.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon said most Australians would be shocked to learn exactly who can get their hands on the material.

"There is a misconception that getting someone's metadata means that you have to be a law enforcement agency, that it relates to national security or serious organised crime issues," he told 7.30.

"The fact is there are literally hundreds of thousands of metadata searches each year by organisations as obscure as the Victorian Taxi Directorate and local councils."

Call records crucial to catching unlicensed car dealers

In the northern suburbs of Perth, investigators from the Department of Commerce are using metadata to track down people involved in illegal car dealing.

What is metadata? Metadata is widely understood to include: the time and length of phone calls

the location of the person making and receiving the call

the internet protocol or IP address attached to a mobile phone or computer

the email address of both the sender and recipient of an email

the start and finish time of internet sessions

Commissioner for Consumer Protection Anne Driscoll says it has been "fundamental" to catching offenders, including a woman who had been prosecuted once before.

"We basically tracked the advertisements that were in a local newspaper over a period of about a year and saw there was a continuing mobile phone number in use," she told 7.30.

The department requested subscriber information from the telecommunications service provider in order to confirm the mobile number belonged to a woman named Jayde Ashleigh Grundy.

Ms Driscoll says Ms Grundy pleaded guilty to illegally selling 31 cars over a period of about a year and was fined more than $11,000.

"I don't believe there would be any other way we could get a prosecution up along these lines without metadata."

Metadata forces confession from doctor over ethics breach

Metadata is not only being used to expose illegal behaviour but immoral behaviour too.

Earlier this year, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) received a complaint about a doctor having an 'intimate and sexual relationship' with a patient's spouse.

It's a bit like locking down a CBD and having helicopters flying overhead if somebody is suspected of shoplifting. That's the equivalent. Senator Nick Xenophon

The doctor initially claimed the relationship did not begin until after the patient was discharged from hospital.

However, AHPRA used its powers to access call records in order to prove the pair had been in regular contact while the patient was being treated for serious injuries.

"Without the telecommunications records, the severity of the breaches would not have been established," AHPRA told 7.30 in a statement.

Mr Xenophon says the intrusion of privacy was not necessary.

"It's a bit like locking down a CBD and having helicopters flying overhead if somebody is suspected of shoplifting. That's the equivalent," he said.

"It's complete overkill. Let's concentrate on catching the bad guys, the terrorists and organised crime figures and put our resources into that."

Greens, telcos call for tighter controls on access to metadata

While metadata has proven useful to numerous government agencies, there are growing calls to place limits on who can access the material.

A federal Senate inquiry into the Telecommunications Act is underway and Greens senator Scott Ludlam is calling for greater judicial oversight.

"What we have at the moment are dozens of agencies, hundreds potentially, accessing material without a warrant for a huge variety of different issues and the law really hasn't kept pace with technology," he told 7.30.

"You should be able to get the material but the request should go through a law enforcement agency rather than just being able to fill out a piece of paper and say 'Hey, Telstra, tell me everything you've got on this person'.

"You don't want to turn every little government agency in the land into little mini spy agencies."

The Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association is also concerned about the growing number of organisations that can access private customer information.

CEO Chris Althaus says responding to each request for metadata is time consuming.

"This system is ballooning outside crime prevention, crime detection and national security issues. That should be the core of any data-retention proposal," he said.

The Federal Government is considering forcing telecommunications companies to store metadata for at least two years in case senior police and spy agencies need the material for counter-terrorism purposes.

Mr Althaus said the industry is happy to help with matters of national security but should not have to respond to minor criminal investigations.

"The more people that have access, the more people that can be involved with this data set, the greater the cost to industry," he said.

"We think the Government should put some significant limitations on the sort of data that's collected and the sort of people who can access it."

The parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security is due to report back at the end of the month.

Local council makes no apologies for metadata use

However many organisations are unlikely to surrender their powers to access metadata without a fight.

Former Bankstown City Council Mayor Khal Asfour said the western Sydney community has become a dumping ground and council needs to obtain call records and subscriber information to help tackle the problem.

"I don't believe that you're invading privacy when you're helping to prosecute illegal dumpers in our city," he told 7.30.

"The cost of illegal dumping is in the hundreds of thousands annually. It is something the community won't cop."

Bankstown City Council has made at least nine requests for metadata and the mayor says they all relate to illegal dumping.

According to a report from the federal Attorney-General's Department, the most requests made in a single financial year came from Centrelink, which contacted telecommunications companies 1,181 times in 2011-12.

There is also a push to expand the number of government agencies that can access the material, with groups like the Australian Racing Board hoping to be added to the list.

Politicians disagree on definition of metadata

There has been confusion over what the term metadata actually means.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has likened it to the material on the front of the envelope as opposed to the content of the letter.

Mr Xenophon says it is the equivalent of having a government agent following a person around and writing down every address they have ever been to.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam describes it as "data about data".

"It tells you everything you need to know about an email or phone call without actually disclosing the content of the email or phone call," he told 7.30.

Topics: information-and-communication, security-intelligence, defence-and-national-security, telecommunications, federal-government, federal-parliament, australia

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