The Reasons behind Increasing Data Retention in Australia and the Importance of VPN
Table of Content
1 . The Data Retention Laws in Australia, along with their meaning.
3. Why data retention is crucial to the Australian Government?
4. How Australian Internet Users can be inconvenienced by Metadata Retention
5. You should not be Worried if You Have Nothing to Hide
6. LimeVPN’s Stand as far as Metadata Retention in Australia is concerned
7. What are the Costs of Data Retention and Who Will Pay for the Service?
The newly revealed data retention laws in Australia are limiting the right to privacy for internet users in the country. This publication seeks to elaborate on the facts as well as solutions to the current metadata retention predicament in Australia, which include:
- The Data Retention Laws in Australia, along with their meaning.
- What is Metadata?
- Why data retention is crucial to the Australian Government?
- How Australian internet users can be inconvenienced by metadata retention.
- You should not be worried if you have nothing to hide.
- LimeVPN’s stand as far as metadata retention in Australia is concerned.
- What is the cost of data retention and who will pay for the service?
The Data Retention Laws in Australia, along with their meaning.
The Data Retention Laws refer to a Bill that was announced at the Australian Parliament in October 2014 and passed into law on 26th March 2015 through the Senate.
The Bill requires all ISPs along with Telecom carriers in the country to amass Metadata of each Australian and hold it for a period of not less than two years. According to the Bill, the data collected is monitored by two thousand five hundred selected offices across the twenty one Australian agencies.
The following is the data that will be amassed, stored and monitored according to the proposed laws:
- Email details
- Account holder name and address
- Recipient of communications
- Mobile number
- Location of the device
- Date of any communication made
- Time of any communication made
What is Metadata?
The basic definition isn’t very informative. However, Metadata is used to mean structured information about an information resource of any media or format. In the simplest of terms, Metadata is machine generated data; the machine in this case can be anything ranging from a computer, smartphone among other electronic devices used to conduct online activities.
Why data retention is crucial to the Australian Government?
The Australian Government is eager to collect all metadata of its internet users to help in the fight against crime and terrorism in the country. The Government’s decision is mainly based on the fact that Australians are becoming more dependent on the internet by the day. As much as the Australian Government thinks this is a good move, the bottom line is that Australians’ rights to privacy are intruded.
The Australian Government can use the amassed metadata and create a highly detailed profile of you, such as the one illustrated below:
Your
- Relationship status
- Political views
- Financial situations
- Medical history
- Likes and dislikes
- Taste in food and so on.
How Australian Internet Users can be inconvenienced by Metadata Retention
Metadata retention is bad news for Australian internet users. To begin with, their rights to privacy will definitely be intruded by these gigantic laws. Each and every Australian will be under full surveillance once the laws are exercised. This is something that internet users in Australia will have a hard time to cope with. It’ll be digital hell on Australia; well the Americans are already experiencing it, courtesy of the NSA.
Metadata retention is a nightmare for smartphone owners in Australia. Most Australians use smartphones than any other communication device. Therefore, this means that metadata, including websites visited; check-ins, GPS tags, pictures uploaded, downloaded files and emails sent will all be easily available for the Government to create detailed profiles of internet users in Australia. In addition, the data retention laws will particularly trouble P2P file sharing, torrent downloads, social media activities, metadata for journalists, and email users.
You should not be Worried if You Have Nothing to Hide
This is debatable; well, the fact that you have nothing to hide does not mean that your rights to privacy can openly be intruded while you stand their watching helplessly. Those who are comfortable with the upcoming intruding metadata retention laws are probably used to being under surveillance. So, now it seems to be obvious that using VPN in Australia is a must.
LimeVPN’s Stand as far as Metadata Retention in Australia is concerned
LimeVPN is against Metadata retention in Australia, and it can be used to overpower Metadata retention. This has been confirmed by Malcolm Turnbull (Communications Minister) by stating that VPNs will interfere with law enforcement of data retention.
A VPN helps you maintain privacy and anonymity while connected to the internet. It achieves this by encrypting your communications and routing it through strongly encrypted tunnels. The encrypted communications along with the encrypted tunnel keeps your online activity anonymous.
Your ISP will have full knowledge of your online presence; however, it will not be able to tell exactly what you are doing. The proposed retention laws have increased the request for VPNs in Australia. LimeVPN outsmarts other VPNs as far as anonymity, privacy and security are concerned. LimeVPN is the most ideal VPN to engage as a countermeasure of Metadata Retention in the country.
LimeVPN provides Australian internet user’s access to more than 6,000 IPs from more than 20 servers in more than 10 countries across the globe to conceal their real IP in order to stay anonymous. Basically, LimeVPN is the best, because it offers you 256-bit military-grade encryption with its Australian VPN promo proposition.
You can easily enjoy the anonymity, privacy and secrecy provided by LimeVPN by doing the following: get a LimeVPN subscription; download LimeVPN app for Mac or Windows; connect to LimeVPN by using Data Retention security.
What are the Costs of Data Retention and Who Will Pay for the Service?
The projected cost for the suggested Metadata retention Laws will be around $400 M. According to iiNet, the projected cost for establishing a warehouse for storing the data will be $60 M, which is estimated to double after a couple of years.
On top of the above stated costs, the Government needs to settle other additional costs, including staff salaries and power costs. At the end of it all the tax payer’s income settles the costs in addition to a $5 per internet user every month. It is a good thing that VPNs exist or else Australians would end up suffering double losses, including intrusive measures on rights to privacy and the increased internet charges.
Rachael Chapman
A Complete gamer and a Tech Geek. Brings out all her thoughts and love in writing blogs on IOT, software, technology etc
