Friday 28 November 2014

George Brandis: I will decide who has a right to access my metadata and the manner in which they access it


Personal information contained in metadata is 'owned' by you if you just happen to be Australian Attorney-General George Brandis (left) or one of his political or personal acquaintances, but not if you are unfortunate enough to be Bazza Citizen…..

The Sydney Morning Herald 27 November 2014:

Attorney-General George Brandis wants your private phone and internet metadata to be accessible by law-enforcement agencies without a warrant but won't let you see his.
As the Abbott government moves to make it a requirement for internet and phone providers to store every Australian citizens' metadata for two years, Mr Brandis has refused to divulge the metadata of his mobile phone bill.
Instead, a redacted version not even showing the cost of his bill has been released. It shows his Telstra bill for July is 17 pages long - 13 pages longer than this author's bill for the same month.
According to Mr Brandis' chief of staff, the decision to entirely censor the bill was due to it containing "personal information about a number of individuals' telephone numbers", as well as the time and origin of calls, reports technology publication ZDNet.
"Disclosure of the personal information in the document is unreasonable," Mr Brandis' chief of staff Paul O'Sullivan said, adding that who the minister called was not relevant…..
Telstra is refusing to hand it over and the case is currently before the Privacy Commissioner, who is set to decide on the matter before the end of the year.

Snapshot from reply to FOI request for Brandis metadata dated 27 November 2014:



* Photograph from news.com.au, May 2014

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