One of the big question marks over the controversial "metadata retention" legislation requiring ISPs to keep detailed records of what Australians do online was how much money the government would cough up to help deal with the increased costs the plan would create. Now we have an official figure: $131 million.
Governments around the world want to know a lot about who we are and what we're doing online and they want communications companies to help them find it. We don't know a lot about when companies hand over this data, but we do know that it's becoming increasingly common.
The new Federal Government push for metadata retention has got off to a very rocky start, with government ministers offering nonsensical, incoherent and inconsistent explanations of what is proposed. Assuming that anyone in the Coalition ever manages to come up with a coherent explanation of what is proposed, what would the technical and legislative requirements of such a system be?
Australian government plans to force ISPs to retain metadata are already causing huge controversy. As Michelle Grattan explains, a huge part of the reason for that is a lack of detail and clarity in those plans.
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