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INTERNET TAX: HOW THE GOVERNMENT WILL MAKE YOU PAY MORE WITH PROPOSED NEW METADATA LAWS [FARS News Agency](FARS News Agency Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Thursday morning saw a surprise from Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who announced to parliament that the government would introduce laws to require telecommunications companies and Internet service providers to store telephone and email records from their customers – or metadata – for two years, under new legislation. It's time to call it what it is, using Tony Abbott's words – "A big fat new tax". The bill, known as the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014, gives provisions for government law enforcement to access that metadata without a warrant. The costs of this data storage will not be provided for by the government. Instead, businesses will be expected to pay for compliance. This will almost certainly be then passed on to customers, in what will end up becoming a tax on using a phone, or the Internet. Companies will be given 18 months to comply with the legislation, should it pass as law. The bill is being framed as a matter of national security. Some key passages from the Explanatory Memorandum for the bill are as follows: Currently, the TIA Act does not specify any types of data the telecommunications industry should retain for law enforcement and national security purposes or how long that information should be held. In lieu of any standardisation, individual carriers retain information based on business, taxation, billing and marketing requirements meaning there are significant variations across the telecommunications industry in the types of data available to law enforcement and national security agencies and the period of time that information is available. Agencies have publicly identified the lack of availability of data as a key and growing impediment to the ability to investigate and to prosecute serious offences. This Bill will amend the TIA Act to standardise the types of telecommunications data that service providers must retain under the TIA Act and the period of time for which that information must be held. Australians are notoriously reticent to really be up in arms about issues like this. Explaining why this matters is hard to understand for the layperson, with the classic arguments often from those who would 'gladly' sacrifice personal liberties via the old line: "They could search my data any day – I don't have anything to hide!" But this bill doesn't even define what the government will ask telecommunication companies to collect, and the Ministers behind it can't define what metadata means. Where will it be stored? Is it rife for abuse or hacking? And at what cost? Let's also not forget that Malcolm Turnbull himself campaigned against this very idea, back in 2012: Now this data retention proposal is only the latest effort by the Gillard Government to restrain freedom of speech. Perhaps the best strategy is to use something from the Coalition playbook: It's a great big new tax. This is an Internet Tax. If you want to browse the Internet now, you'll need to pay more – the definition of a tax. As this piece was being written, Fairfax broke news that the Coalition party room is preparing for backlash via a possible 'Internet Tax' campaign. And so they should prepare, because that's exactly right. While the bill presented to parliament is not silent on the issue of cost, mentioning the financial impact without explicitly detailing the costs – there will be a cost to implement tracking measures, store data and respond to agency requests for data. (c) 2014 Fars News Agency. All rights reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |