Government introduces Bill on mandatory data retention
On 30 October 2014, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull introduced the federal government’s controversial legislation for a mandatory data retention scheme into Parliament. Under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014, it is proposed that telecommunications service providers must store customer telecommunications metadata (but not content data) for two years so that it can be accessed by law enforcement agencies on request without a warrant. Mr Turnbull told Parliament that “[a]ccess to metadata plays a central role in almost every counter-terrorism, counter espionage, cyber security, organised crime investigation”.