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Data Retention — an Act of blindness

One day a rooster, the next day a feather duster!

By LAURIE PATTON | 30 October 2020

Shortly after joining Internet Australia as CEO in 2014 I fronted the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Security and Intelligence (PJCIS) to make a submission on the subsequently enacted Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015. I boldly told the committee that the draft Bill before the Parliament was “fundamentally flawed” and had clearly been written by lawyers who didn’t understand how the Internet actually works.

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Data retention — how not to introduce complex legislation

By LAURIE PATTON | 21 December 2015

One of my first tasks shortly after joining Internet Australia in 2014 was to front the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS). My appearance at the hearing into the (Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015) came at the end of a long day of mostly critical submissions.

With our president and the head of the policy committee sitting beside me I boldly told the committee that the Data Retention Bill was “fundamentally flawed” and had clearly been drafted by lawyers who didn’t understand how the Internet actually works. How prescient those comments have proven to have been.

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