Confusion still reigns over quite what the government means by Metadata, seemingly even within the halls of power itself. A leaked discussion paper highlights some of the things the Government now wants to know.
The Australian reports that a consultation paper used in discussions with Telstra, iiNet and Optus amongst other ISPs details exactly the kinds of metadata the government is seeking to have secured and stored.
Amongst the wishlist of Metadata the government would like to be stored are such details as names and addresses of account holders, information to trace the source of a communication and the device type used for that communication, billing and payment information, user download and upload volumes but not, interestingly, user web browsing histories.
Whether or not this kind of storage bothers you varies depending on the level to which surveillance concerns you; for every person worried about the privacy implication it appears that there’ll be another who falls behind the mantra of having “nothing to hide anyway”.
At least we’re starting to get a more rounded picture of what the current metadata policy proposals actually mean, as distinct from the muddled launch of the policy itself.