Greens Senator Scott Ludlam told ABC PM Will Ockenden that Australians will be able to sidestep mandatory metadata retention if they use non-Australian email and messaging services last week.
Senator Ludlam had “quizzed Attorney-General’s Department as part of a review by a Senate Committee of the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act,” Ockenden told ABC PM listeners.
“So if my email account is an @iinet.net.au address, it will be within scope. And if my email is an @gmail.com, it’ll be out of scope,” Senator Ludlam said.
“All I need to do to avoid mandatory data retention is just to take a webmail service.
“If I use a cloud hosting provider or Gchat, or something like that, I won’t be caught.
“If I use an iinet or an Internode address, I will be caught.
How the proposed legislation is intended to work has a lot of resemblance to the scrapped Internet filter. Where they treated all Australien Internet users as potential criminals, yet circumventing the filter was very easy, and so might the mandatory metadata retention legislation.
Even if getting around the scrapped web filter and the proposed mandatory metadata retention is easy, there will be enough innocent Internet users that either don’t have the know-how to sidestep it or unable due to having to use an Australian email service.
That of course if we are to believe that non-Australian email and messaging services will not be affected.
Additionally, advising Australian Internet users to use US services might not be so helpful.
It was not until the Global Surveillance revelations of 2013 were made we understood how far NSA had gone to harvest user data from online services located in the US.
By using an email service in the US might allow you to avoid the proposed mandatory metadata retention in Australia, but you will then be subject to have your data harvested by the NSA — a lose-lose situation if you ask me.
If you are concerned about your privacy, and you should be, you are better off looking for email and messaging services that reside within EU where privacy is still valued and guarded by strong laws — for now.
No data retention for you!
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam told ABC PM Will Ockenden that Australians will be able to sidestep mandatory metadata retention if they use non-Australian email and messaging services last week.
Senator Ludlam had “quizzed Attorney-General’s Department as part of a review by a Senate Committee of the Telecommunications Interception and Access Act,” Ockenden told ABC PM listeners.
“So if my email account is an @iinet.net.au address, it will be within scope. And if my email is an @gmail.com, it’ll be out of scope,” Senator Ludlam said.
“All I need to do to avoid mandatory data retention is just to take a webmail service.
“If I use a cloud hosting provider or Gchat, or something like that, I won’t be caught.
“If I use an iinet or an Internode address, I will be caught.
How the proposed legislation is intended to work has a lot of resemblance to the scrapped Internet filter. Where they treated all Australien Internet users as potential criminals, yet circumventing the filter was very easy, and so might the mandatory metadata retention legislation.
Even if getting around the scrapped web filter and the proposed mandatory metadata retention is easy, there will be enough innocent Internet users that either don’t have the know-how to sidestep it or unable due to having to use an Australian email service.
That of course if we are to believe that non-Australian email and messaging services will not be affected.
Additionally, advising Australian Internet users to use US services might not be so helpful.
It was not until the Global Surveillance revelations of 2013 were made we understood how far NSA had gone to harvest user data from online services located in the US.
By using an email service in the US might allow you to avoid the proposed mandatory metadata retention in Australia, but you will then be subject to have your data harvested by the NSA — a lose-lose situation if you ask me.
If you are concerned about your privacy, and you should be, you are better off looking for email and messaging services that reside within EU where privacy is still valued and guarded by strong laws — for now.
Featured image source: vintagedept
