APC Australia

Australian Federal Court rules on what aspects of metadata are deemed ‘personal informatio­n’

ALL YOUR METAS ARE BELONG TO US.

- Sharmishta Sarkar

A landmark ruling delivered recently by the Australian Federal Court has redefined ‘personal informatio­n’ or metadata collected by telcos under Australia’s mandatory data retention policy. This informatio­n includes the location, timing, destinatio­n and duration of calls and texts, IP addresses, URLs visited and geolocatio­n. According to the court, data is ‘personal’ if an individual is the actual subject of that informatio­n — meaning browsing history, IP address and location are not protected by Australian privacy laws as they relate to the communicat­ions services, not the person. This was the end of an ongoing battle between the Australian Privacy Commission­er and Telstra after journalist Ben Grubb asked the telco for his personal informatio­n. Thwarted by the telco’s privacy department, Grubb took the complaint to the Commission­er who supported the journo. Telstra appealed to the Administra­tive Appeals Tribunal, where the telco emerged victorious. The Privacy Commission­er then took the matter to court, where his efforts in having everything that could be used to identify an individual be protected by the Privacy Act finally came to a halt.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Australia