Australian Tribunal Says User's IP Address And URLs Visited Are Not Personal Information

from the too-remote dept

Techdirt has been writing about the question of what constitutes personal information in an online context for over half a decade. A recent decision in Australia, reported by the Guardian, suggests that the matter is far from settled around the world. The case concerns a journalist, Ben Grubb, who has been trying to get his personal data from the mobile phone company he uses, Telstra. Initially, the Australian privacy commissioner ruled that Telstra had failed to comply with local privacy laws when it refused to hand over the data, but that decision was overturned on appeal by an administrative appeals tribunal (AAT) on the following grounds:

In the AAT decision deputy president Stephanie Forgie took a narrow approach to defining personal information. She said that information such as IP and URL data were too remote to be considered personal information.

"That data is no longer about Mr Grubb or the fact that he made a call or sent a message or about the number or address to which he sent it. It is not about the content of the call or the message. The data is all about the way in which Telstra delivers the call or the message. That is not about Mr Grubb," she wrote.

That ignores just how much information even a single URL reveals about the visitor to the site and page in question. Moreover, putting all those URLs together can create an extremely detailed picture of the person concerned -- from things like their general character and beliefs to current concerns. It's an extension of the incorrect argument trotted out by governments that gathering and storing metadata isn't as intrusive as retaining content, when exactly the opposite is true. Since metadata is pre-sorted into handy conceptual categories, analysing and aggregating the information is extremely easy, even on a huge scale -- just ask the NSA and GCHQ.

However, the Australian privacy commissioner is not taking things lying down:

The privacy commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, has launched a federal court challenge to a ruling that a journalist was not entitled to access parts of his personal mobile phone data.

The landmark challenge is believed to be the first time the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has sought to appeal a case before the federal court.

As the Guardian rightly notes, the outcome of the case is likely to have important ramifications for future requests involving personal information under the country's privacy laws.

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Filed Under: australia, ben grubb, ip addresses, metadata, personal information, urls
Companies: telstra

Telstra Having Second Thoughts Over Censorship Plan; Fears Reprisals From Hactivists

from the having-an-impact dept

Well, this is getting interesting. While I still don't approve of the tactics of vigilante hacker groups, it's hard to deny that they're having some impact. After reports came out that Autralian telco giant Telstra was going to start censoring the internet by blocking a bunch of sites the government says are evil, the company has now indicated that it's wavering on its support of the plan, in large part due to fear of hacker reprisal attacks. In the stilted English of The Australian:

It is understood Telstra was last night still grappling with the decision as to whether to commit to the voluntary filter because of fears of reprisals from the internet vigilantes behind a spate of recent cyber attacks.

It is understood the unstructured collective of hackers that identifies itself as Lulz Security, which has an agenda to wreak havoc on corporate and government cyber assets, claiming this is to expose security flaws, is one of Telstra main concerns.

While I don't think the filters are a good idea, and am surprised and impressed by the "effectiveness" of LulzSec's efforts in getting Telstra to be aware that people don't like these filters and that there could be consequences, I do still wonder if this is really the best way to go about these things. Lots of folks will cheer this on because they agree with the end result (no censorship), but what if LulzSec (or a similar group, now that LulzSec says it's going away) makes a unilateral decision on something you disagree with? One of the problems of the censorship plan in Australia is that there's no oversight, and no way to appeal. But isn't that the same thing with those targeted by hactivists? Even if we agree with their general outlook, there's still a very real risk of collateral damage in a different way.

Of course, it's not just Telstra rethinking its position on censoring the internet. Apparently some of the other ISPs who had agreed to take part in this "voluntary" censorship are suddenly saying that it's not definite yet as to whether they'll take part. It sounds like many of these ISPs hoped they could just start censoring the internet without anyone noticing.

Filed Under: australia, censorship, filters, hactivists, lulzsec, politics
Companies: telstra

Yet Another DRM Failure Leaves Customers High And Dry

from the down-under dept

By now you should know this -- as DRM'd music service after DRM'd music service has screwed over their customers by shutting off the servers on the music they were supposed to be able to access -- but it's yet another reminder that if you buy into DRM'd products, you're going to end up screwed over. The latest, sent in by a bunch of you, is that Australian ISP, Bigpond (from Telstra), is shutting off its DRM servers that were used to support Windows Media Audio. Once again, the DRM did nothing to stop file sharing, but is making life difficult and annoying for legitimate customers.

Filed Under: australia, bigpond, drm, music
Companies: bigpond, telstra