The iiNET ISP is fighting data retention laws in Australia:
http://blog.iinet.ne...ecting-your-privacy/A few excerpts:
One of the features of the iiNet Copyright Trial was our strong stand against monitoring our customers. The Hollywood Studios believed we should data-match information provided by third parties who were monitoring our customers, and then send warning notices to alleged copyright infringers, all without lawful warrants – the High Court agreed with us.
In iiNet’s view, we should not be forced to collect, store or match personal information on behalf of third parties – our only obligation is to retain the information necessary to provide, maintain and bill for services. iiNet does not keep any web browsing history or download records, for example.
Last week the Attorney General, George Brandis said the government is now actively considering a data retention regime that could impact on anyone who uses the Internet in this country.
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We don’t think this ‘police state’ approach is a good idea, so we’re fighting moves by the Australian Government to introduce legislation that would force us to collect and store your personal information.
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Police say “If you have nothing to hide, then you shouldn’t be worried”. Personally I think that if you follow that dubious logic, we’d all be walking around naked. It’s not about being worried, or wanting to ‘hide’ anything. It’s about the right to decide what you keep private and what you allow to be shared. YOU should be the one to make that call, and that decision should stick until a warrant or something similar is issued to law enforcement agencies to seize your information.
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It is hard to measure exactly what this will all cost, but we expect that collecting and keeping every customer’s ‘metadata’ would require the construction of many new data centres, each storing petabytes (that’s 1 billion megabytes!) of information at a cost of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. There is no suggestion that the government would pay these costs, so our customers will be expected to pick up these costs in the form of a new surveillance tax.
More at the link.
Anyone up for a bet?
In 10 years this will all be looked at with nostalgia as people debate whether or not the government has the right to chip everyone and monitor their movements... Because safety, terrorism, and think of the children!
