Should the government be able to access the metadata of Australians?
The Australian legal system is meant to provide the community with safety, a way of improving our protection is by using data retention. Data retention is usually used for any crime related offences. The information from the metadata which the government retrieves is basically who, when and where. The information obtained is: who was it sent to, when was it sent and where it was sent from. Leaving just the core concern, the content. The content will not be either accessible or obtained by the government (Thomas, 2015). Metadata is also known as telecommunication data or record data- this could also be interpreted as data of data (Kocher, 2015). The data is only retained for …show more content…
The current legislation on data retention is the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015. The legislation allows the government and a limited amount of agencies to access the data, which would be provided by the internet service. It is also known that around 35 Western countries worldwide have a legislation for their data retention schemes, which will make the community feel more assured with the law (Australian Government). There are many ways metadata is retrieved such as phone calls, emails and other technological appliances that utilize telecommunications companies. For example, an email will only give the email addresses and when it was sent; the government does not receive the details of the subject line or the content of the email. By allowing the government to access our metadata it will reduce any upcoming problems. Hence, the current legislation is fine, all we can are minor adjustments by implementing a …show more content…
Majority of the opposing group tends to lean on the thought of protecting their own privacy, they prefer not to grant the government information of their internet activities (Kidman, 2014). People tend to become superstitious with thoughts such as the possibility of the government being able to listen in to calls and read emails, the government will be able to access everything you’re doing online and the government is gathering and analysing information of Australian citizens (Australian Government). Although privacy is a problem, cost is also major. It is estimated that $188.8mill-$319.1mill will be used to implement the proposed data retention regime in consultation with industry, this will most likely be in the expense of tax payers. Money will be wasted on building new data centres with each storing petabytes of information which will cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars (iinet, 2014; Australian Government). The use of the money is usually seen as wasteful. Australian’s opinions in the comment section, of Kidman’s article, mentioned how the money could have been used for more useful resources such as buildings or funding more hospitals and schools. Although stakeholders can bring up that even the government themselves do not thoroughly know the aspect of metadata (Hopewell, 2014). This is shown how Attorney General George Brandis did not
The Australian legal system is meant to provide the community with safety, a way of improving our protection is by using data retention. Data retention is usually used for any crime related offences. The information from the metadata which the government retrieves is basically who, when and where. The information obtained is: who was it sent to, when was it sent and where it was sent from. Leaving just the core concern, the content. The content will not be either accessible or obtained by the government (Thomas, 2015). Metadata is also known as telecommunication data or record data- this could also be interpreted as data of data (Kocher, 2015). The data is only retained for …show more content…
The current legislation on data retention is the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015. The legislation allows the government and a limited amount of agencies to access the data, which would be provided by the internet service. It is also known that around 35 Western countries worldwide have a legislation for their data retention schemes, which will make the community feel more assured with the law (Australian Government). There are many ways metadata is retrieved such as phone calls, emails and other technological appliances that utilize telecommunications companies. For example, an email will only give the email addresses and when it was sent; the government does not receive the details of the subject line or the content of the email. By allowing the government to access our metadata it will reduce any upcoming problems. Hence, the current legislation is fine, all we can are minor adjustments by implementing a …show more content…
Majority of the opposing group tends to lean on the thought of protecting their own privacy, they prefer not to grant the government information of their internet activities (Kidman, 2014). People tend to become superstitious with thoughts such as the possibility of the government being able to listen in to calls and read emails, the government will be able to access everything you’re doing online and the government is gathering and analysing information of Australian citizens (Australian Government). Although privacy is a problem, cost is also major. It is estimated that $188.8mill-$319.1mill will be used to implement the proposed data retention regime in consultation with industry, this will most likely be in the expense of tax payers. Money will be wasted on building new data centres with each storing petabytes of information which will cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars (iinet, 2014; Australian Government). The use of the money is usually seen as wasteful. Australian’s opinions in the comment section, of Kidman’s article, mentioned how the money could have been used for more useful resources such as buildings or funding more hospitals and schools. Although stakeholders can bring up that even the government themselves do not thoroughly know the aspect of metadata (Hopewell, 2014). This is shown how Attorney General George Brandis did not