Pirate Party Australia has stated that ‘metadata’ is the most dangerous form of data[1], but apart from Senator Scott Ludlam, no one else got the message. Representatives from the Attorney-General’s Department and other government agencies have continued drawing misleading distinctions between ‘metadata’ or ‘telecommunications data’ and ‘content data’ at public hearings on telecommunications legislation, though Senator Ludlam has been quick to call them out on this[2].

Pirate Party Australia’s President Simon Frew commented: “Drawing a divide between ‘telecommunications data’ and ‘content data’ is an attempt to make us think that telecommunications data is only the information that gets collected for billing. This is absolutely false. The debate needs to go beyond this artificial distinction. It needs to be reframed around the reality that although content data reveals what you said, telecommunications data can reveal who you talk to, who your friends are, who their friends are, which establishments you frequent, and even the times you are asleep.”

“The question that needs to be asked is ‘what, exactly, is reasonable to record and access without a warrant?’ In a modern democracy, there must be an understanding between the citizens and the state as to the sort of surveillance that is acceptable and necessary. We also need to consider privacy obligations with regard to stored data — how long should data be stored for and how access should be restricted. There is currently no obligation to destroy ‘non-content data’ after a set period[3],” Mr Frew continued.

German politician, Malte Spitz, sued to have telecommunications provider Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of telecommunications data collected from his phone[4]. Using the data Spitz provided to them, media outlet ZEIT ONLINE built a map that tracks almost all the politician’s activities over that period — where he was, how many calls he made and received, and the duration of those calls. ZEIT also added publicly available information from Spitz’s Twitter feed, blogs and websites. This provides a startlingly vivid image of Spitz’s life.

“Those who promote the myth that telecommunications data is somehow harmless and minimally intrusive are either being deliberately misleading or are simply unaware of how dangerous the information is. Contrary to the claims of the Attorney-General’s Department, collection of telecommunications data is enormously intrusive. It is far more intrusive that listening in on a conversation because of its ability to be used to build a picture of who is talking to who and where they are,” Mr Frew concluded.

Another threat to privacy in Australia is the continued push from the intelligence community for mandatory data retention. The Law Council of Australia’s spokesperson at the hearings, Phillip Boulten, reminded the Senate Committee conducting the review that the Court of Justice of the European Union recently ruled the EU’s Data Retention Directive is invalid due to its overly intrusive nature[5][6]. The Data Retention Directive required telecommunications providers to store user’s data for a minimum of six months and under the current review in Australia the Attorney-General’s Department and the intelligence community have submitted arguments for introducing a similar scheme here.

Pirate Party Australia will be making more statements as the hearings continue.

[1] https://pirateparty.org.au/2014/04/01/metadata-is-the-most-dangerous-form-of-data/
[2] http://www.zdnet.com/metadata-under-the-microscope-at-telecommunications-hearings-7000028627/
[3] http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/543389/data_retention_just_like_diamonds_metadata_forever/
[4] http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/senate-surveillance-inquiry-grave-concerns-data-collection?CMP=twt_gu
[6] http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-04/cp140054en.pdf