Australia’s New Mandatory Data Retention Law

Last week, Australia became the latest country to pass a mandatory data retention law. The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015, which amends Australia's Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979, requires telecommunications and Internet service providers (ISPs) to store customer metadata for two years. This means that Australian ISPs and telecom providers will have to store data associated with electronic communications, such as the names and addresses of account holders, the names of the recipients of any communications, the time and duration of communications, the location of equipment used to make the communication (such as cell towers), and computers' IP addresses. Although the law does not require ISPs and telecoms to store the contents of customers' electronic communications, metadata still can provide a picture of an individual's identity, interests, and even location, which makes it of great interest to