Australia’s move to force internet and phone providers to store customers’ records for two years has our Privacy Commissioner Tim Pilgrim fearing a metadata breach.
Sydney Morning Herald has published a comprehensive article on the impact of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014.
Given the sensitive nature of the information collected, Pilgrim is lobbying for breach notification to be written into the proposed legislation. Currently there is no legislation requiring businesses report customer data breaches to the commissioner or to affected customers.
Timothy Pilgrim also warned the proposed data retention scheme may result in providers collecting “more personal information than is necessary” for their business purposes and “retaining that information for longer than is necessary for those purposes”. The scheme would therefore require providers to handle personal information in a way “that may otherwise be inconsistent with those providers’ obligations under the Privacy Act,” he said.
Read the full Sydney Morning Herald article here.
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