Your every activity is recorded

From today, every call, sms & internet activity wll be tracked by government under a new law in Australia.

If you are living in Australia with a mobile phone or Internet connection – then your digital activity will be recorded.

As the government’s new data retention law comes into effect, the Australian telecommunications companies will now keep larger ammounts of telecommunications data for 2 years.

This data comes to law because it seems Australian government wants to ‘protect country’ against organized terorist and criminals, like every country (eg.USA-NSA)..

This is completely new to Australia and it’s triggered major privacy .

Until today, data retention by mobile and Internet providers was inconsistent. Data about who called/texted was generally stored by telecommunications companies for billing purposes.

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What are they colecting ?

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Phone data:

• Who you called
• Who you texted
• Missed numbers
• Time and Date of calls and SMS
• Duration of calls
• Your Location at the time of call or SMS
• Device data

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Internet data:

• Your IP address
• Location and geographical data
• The volume of your uploads and downloads
• Time and duration of your web connections
• Your email data including emailed Date, Time and Attachment data volumes (If you use an Australian email service)
• While not mandatory, some internet providers may record the IP address of the sites you visit, mainly your Internet history

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However, civil liberties advocates have argued that the metadata, in an aggregate, paints a very accurate picture of a user’s life. Like iiNet said, “If you have the metadata, you have the content.”

For now, this metadata is not much, however – this can change in the nearly future.

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Who can access your data ?

Your data is held by Australian Security agencies, law enforcement and even your local police station.

But, Yournalist are on the safer side than ordinary citizens since police must request warrant from the court to access their data because of the press sources.

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How can i protect myself ?

Its easy to protect yourself from them since their is very helpful tools online – in this contect, we will provide you best instructions for your protection.

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Instead of using the cellular network, use free apps to make calls or send text messages. For e.g., TextSecure for encrypted text messaging, RedPhone for encrypted phone calls andSignal for both encrypted messaging and phone calls.

Use Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that help hide your Internet traffic by encrypting the connection. For the guide, check this.

Use non-Australian email, video, and social media platforms, such as Gmail,Hotmail,Facebook and Skype, as these are exempted from some of the data retention requirements. (Note: Government will be able to see that you use these services, but they won’t know whom you’re talking to)

Use Public Wi-Fi hotspots. We usually don’t advice to use public hotspots but Australians can consider using public hotspots as they aren’t included in the data retention scheme.