Intelligence Committee recommends scaling back privacy-invading metadata laws
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) has made bi-partisan recommendations for the scaling back of Australia’s controversial metadata retention regime.
The mandatory data retention laws currently require telecommunication companies to keep records of every single Australian’s phone calls, text messages and a range of other data for at least two years, data which is being quietly accessed over 350,000 times a year by at least 87 different agencies ranging from local councils to the RSPCA. The laws have also been used by police to secretly access journalists’ metadata at least 78 times.
Human Rights Law Centre Senior Lawyer, Alice Drury, welcomed the Committee’s recommendations that the laws should be wound back.
“In a democracy, we should be able to go about our lives without a bunch of government agencies secretly scooping up details of where we’ve been, who we’ve spoken to and the text messages we’ve sent.”
“Under the current laws, your local council might have accessed your personal information for something as minor as a parking fine, without you ever being told. These laws go further than any other democracy in the world. The Morrison government should follow the Committee’s advice and scale them back,” said Drury.
The PJCIS conducted an extensive review of the laws, which have been in place since 2017. During the course of the review the Committee heard from human rights and digital rights experts, including the Human Rights Law Centre, Digital Rights Watch and Access Now, that the metadata retention regime lacked important democracy safeguards and was a grossly disproportionate infringement of Australians’ privacy.
Among its 22 recommendations the Committee recommended amending the law so that people’s data can only be accessed by specified security and law enforcement agencies in connection with serious crimes, as well as improving record-keeping and oversight of when data is accessed and how it is used.
However, the Committee stopped short of recommending much needed reform to add further privacy safeguards, like requiring law enforcement agencies to obtain judicial warrants in order to access people’s data.
"Experience from around the world tells us that we need really comprehensive oversight mechanisms to make sure surveillance powers aren’t abused by government and that our privacy and democracy are protected,” said Drury.
In a separate comment to the PJCIS report, the ALP noted that the laws should also be amended to require consent before accessing a person’s metadata if they are not suspected of a crime.
Drury said the laws provided yet another reason why Australia needs a Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.
“The reality is that powerful corporations and governments don’t always respect the rights of individual people and communities. We need to create an Australian Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms that ensures everyone is treated fairly and with respect and dignity. These are the types of values that should guide government decisions, policies and law making.”
Read the submission to the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security here.
Media contact:
Michelle Bennett, Communications Director, Human Rights Law Centre,
0419 100 519