Online Privacy

There have been a few articles floating about the internet in the last few days discussing the Australian government’s plans for data retention of all online activities.

The Labor Government appears more and more to be playing on the naivety of the general Australian public about these rather technical issues.

With the proposed “Child Safety” government censorship via an internet filter that they are hoping to install on Australia’s internet connections, requires the implementation of a system that will verify your request against a blacklist prior to allowing you access to a requested website. Which means they would be scanning everything we access. The fear now is that they would also be intentionally recording and cataloging those requests in long term archives, which is basically comparable to tape recording and wiretapping your phone 24/7 without a warrant or court order and saving your entire telephone dialogue in a safe for several years just in case you commit what is deemed a crime later…

Of course they were fears put forward by the “paranoid few” which have now come to light as legitimate uses of the filter, with implementation of internet history data retention being investigated by the Australian Government.

So what does it mean for average joe tax paying Internet User?

The key problem is your privacy, your basic human right to privacy, as the world moves more of it’s services online, more of your life will be cataloged and filed for later use by a Government Agency. These neatly formatted and all-inclusive data snippets from your digital life pre indexed with highlights of your likes and dislikes and your political preferences couldn’t possibly be used for evil. Now, conspiracies aside, imagine if this system was compromised by a criminal and all of your private data was laid out for them on a silver platter, no system is infallible because at the end of the day humans built the system and they will make mistakes.

The internet blacklist leaked and it hasn’t even been implemented yet.

Imagine if you are looking for help for a friend who is taking a lot of drugs, you turn online and start doing research about the drug, it’s effects, and how to get off it. Due to your browsing patterns, the automated system places your name onto a “drug activity” list. Now a few years later you are detained at a nightclub for getting a little rowdy, but instead of being slapped on the wrist, the police enter your data into the system and your name is flagged with “Drug Activity”, All of a sudden you take a visit to the police station in the back of a paddy wagon for some drug tests and some nice friendly questions in a windowless room to make sure your drug problem was not the actual cause of the disturbance.

It’s sounds very Orwellian, but it also sounds very Steven Conroy.

For the greater good, protecting the children from harm, we MUST file and catalog all of your internet traffic.

If a system such as this was actually going to CATCH real criminals, it would have some merit. Quite simply it will be just as easy to bypass as the internet filter and in fact it would probably be part of the internet filter that your bypassing. Real bad guys will simply go around it unchecked, just like high school students are already doing. So once again there will be a massive waste of tax payers money, to buy a system that does nothing but destroy the tax payer’s privacy.

In turn Internet users will be forced to privatize their online ventures, silencing free speech through self-editing authors who don’t want to be arrested Anonymity of criminals will be furthered as everyone shifts over to solutions built to hide your identity online, Criminals become much more difficult to track and child exploitation will continue to thrive, even easier than before.

Anyone would think that this government is bored and simply DOESN’T want to be re-elected…