October 13th 2015 marked the unveiling of the NLP’s Data Retention Scheme, which under new legislation opened the floodgates for Australia’s metadata watchdogs. The government now holds the ability to track every phone call you make, text message you send and email you write.
All Australian Internet Service providers (ISPs) must by law now retain certain details of their clients’ Internet usage for a period of up to 2 years.
The scheme was implemented to protect Australia against organised crime and terrorism but has received a more avid reputation for being a major invasion of privacy.
An Essential poll from early in the year showed that around 40 per cent of Australians support the introduction of the new metadata laws and 44 per cent did not, while 16 per cent had no idea what it was.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
While it was Tony Abbott’s Liberal government who introduced the new laws into parliament, the inception of the idea was actually devised in 2012 by Julia Gillard under the former Labour government.
Attorney General at the time Nicola Roxon maintained, “The intention behind the proposed reform is to allow law enforcement agencies to continue investigating crime in light of new technologies. The loss of this capability would be a major blow to our law enforcement agencies and to Australia’s national security.”
However the scheme’s biggest protester, Greens senator Scott Ludlam, claims, “these proposals are a sweeping expansion of surveillance powers.”
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was then opposition spokesman for communications spoke out against the introduction of a data retention scheme, saying, “It seems to be heading in precisely the wrong direction.”
Two years later Prime Minster Turnbull was tasked with helping to create the full scheme.
THE DATA RETENTION SCHEME & MICRO-AGENCIES
Attorney-General George Brandis feels that the Data Retention legislation has been unfairly ridiculed by the Greens and crossbench Senators such as David Leyonhjelm. Brandis informed a largely sceptical Senate that the new measures were actually all about “safeguards.”
“…whereas under existing law and some 85 government agencies and even local councils and NGOs can access metadata, as a result of the bill before the chamber this evening, that number of agencies has been reduced to 21… far from expanding the power and the reach of the state by reducing by three-quarters the number of bodies which can access metadata without a warrant.”
Even though the data retention bill has dramatically expanded the amount of data that Australian telcos can retain, it has also limited who can actually access it and under what conditions.
However the problem today for Brandis and Labour is that Australian micro-agencies are not on-board with the scheme, instead they’re fiercely fighting back. 61 separate departments and agencies around Australia, from the ATO to the RSPCA, have petitioned the Attorney General’s Department to gain unwarranted access to Australian’s metadata under the Data Retention scheme.
HOW AUSTRALIA’S NEW METADATA LAWS WILL AFFECT DIGITAL MARKETERS
So now we know all the in’s and outs lets get to how these changes are causing problems for digital marketers.
ISP’s are now legally required to save information regarding source, location and duration of their clients’ web browsing history, as well as the source, destination and time of online communication such as messages, emails and phone calls.
In response to the aforementioned changes there has been an unparalleled number of people switching to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in an attempt to keep their online lives private.
The consensus is that although the actual metadata laws will have no affect on digital marketing efforts, it will be the use of VPNs that will impact online campaigning and reporting.
Ad Targeting
If you’re running online geo-targeting ads via Google Adwords you may be being lead astray. VPNs allow for users to show a different geographical location to their actual whereabouts so this means you may be targeting an audience that isn’t where they say they are, and therefore wont be targeted by your ads.
Local/maps results:
For businesses running out of a fixed location, a popular way of attracting customers is via business’s map listings. Optimising map listings has developed into a successful industry in itself combining SEO techniques and geographical factors to gain increased exposure for people searching for local services.
However, unfortunately for these businesses Internet users that are searching via a VPN may potentially not meet the criteria required to trigger the display of local map results.
In direct effect of this we may see an increase in success for websites who have not incorporated geo targeting in their SEO efforts.
Reporting
Is the location of your customers an important component for your reporting? If so you may be up for some difficulty…VPNs not only confuse ad-delivering software, they also confuse reporting tools. Australian websites may soon see an increase in their analytics data showing visitors appearing from all around the world depending on the location implied by the VPN.
So are these changes for better or worse? Let us know your take on the Data Retention Scheme in the comment section below.