The New Frontier – Defining Metadata:
The Federal Government’s metadata retention policy has been widely publicized and widely criticized, but at this stage the Government is pushing ahead with it. Much of the criticism leveled at the policy has been the lack of clarification of what exactly metadata is, with many Government Ministers failing to provide a clear response when quizzed about it.
A report out today details how Attorney-General George Brandis plans to head off this debate about the definition of metadata. He has told parliament that the Government will include a statutory definition of metadata in the legislation. The article below goes into more detail about the Government’s plan.
Legislation to Define Exactly What Metadata Will Be Stored for Law Enforcement and Spies:
The Abbott government has attempted to put an end to the heated debate over the proposed data retention regime by promising to spell out in law what customer information it will require telecommunication companies to store as part of its law enforcement and counterterrorism reforms.
The controversial new laws will require phone companies and internet providers to store certain internet and phone metadata for up to two years, but the definition of metadata has been up for debate.
Attorney-General George Brandis told the Parliament on Wednesday a “statutory definition” of metadata would be included in the legislation.
The promise follows Fairfax Media publishing a confidential consultation paper that the Attorney-General’s Department circulated to telcos last Friday concerning what data should be stored, which raised further questions.
The comments by Senator Brandis also follow concerns from privacy advocates and internet rights groups that the proposed laws could be introduced without a definition, meaning all sorts of private data would be stored.
In answering a question from Greens senator Scott Ludlam on Wednesday, Senator Brandis acknowledged confusion surrounding the term.
“This is a term that does not have a precise definition. It is a description rather than a definition,” Senator Brandis said.
“The essential concept is that metadata is information about the communication, not the content or the substance of the communication.”
Senator Brandis previously struggled to explain in a live TV interview what data the government wanted telcos to store. He said the government wanted telcos to store “web addresses” under the scheme, but this was later ruled out by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Internet provider iiNet and online rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia voiced concerns about the types of data that would be retained and questioned why consultations were being done in private.
Stamped “confidential” and marked for “preliminary consultation only”, the leaked discussion paper explicitly rules out the retention of “destination IP addresses and URLs” customers access online. Both are a form of web history that can be used to demonstrate where users have been online.
But, in what appears to be a loophole, the paper does not rule out access to this detail by law enforcement if a carrier stores it for other purposes.
The paper also reveals they would be required to store source and destination numbers from a phone call, the time of the call, its duration, and the location of all parties to the call.
Providers would also be required to store “date of birth, financial, and billing information” of subscribers.
Although the paper states source and destination IP addresses are not required, information about the type of service a person is using over the internet is. Such information would help identify the use of a particular service online, such as Skype or BitTorrent.
The paper does not make mention of data pertaining to messaging apps such as like WhatsApp and Viber.
The paper also reveals that carriers would need to retain records that identify the names and addresses of individual internet and telephone account holders and “capture any metrics that describe the use” of an account. An example provided states this could include upload and download volumes of an internet user and their allocated bandwidth.