Quoting from P. S. News. Edition Number 549. Updated Tuesday, 02 May 2017. http://www.psnews.com.au/aps/549/news/police-own-up-to-metadata-breach?utm_source=aps549&utm_medium=email&utm_content=news1&utm_campaign=newsletter_aps
Police own up to metadata breach
An Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigation that revealed one of its members had breached the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 by accessing data about a journalist has been reported by the AFP to the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
The AFP said their member accessed call charge records and telecommunications data pertaining to the journalist without first obtaining a Journalist Information Warrant which was required by the law.
Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said a routine review of the relevant case by a senior officer identified the breach and an internal independent review was immediately undertaken.
“Once the breach was confirmed, immediate steps were taken to mitigate the effects of the breach and to ensure that this was an isolated incident,” Commissioner Colvin said.
“All relevant records in the AFP’s possession were destroyed and no investigative activities were undertaken as a result of the telecommunications data obtained from the journalist’s records.”
He said initial inquiries revealed the breach was a result of human error.
Data accessed outside the law
“Steps have now been put in place to ensure a similar breach should never happen again,” Commissioner Colvin said.
The breach has alarmed the Journalist’s Union - the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) - and the Law Council of Australia with the MEAA saying the unlawful breach had caused it to lose faith in the AFP.
Chief Executive of the MEAA, Paul Murphy said the union had long warned that the introduction of new laws allowing Agencies to access metadata would impinge on press freedom and put journalists at risk of inadvertently breaching their ethical obligation to protect sources.
President of the Law Council, Fiona McLeod said that accessing the private metadata of a journalist without first obtaining a warrant raised concerns about the implementation of the mandatory data retention laws.
“The community needed to have full confidence that data retention laws were not being misused,” Ms McLeod said.
Mr Murphy said that with World Press Freedom Day this Wednesday [3 May], it was time to consider tighter regulations of the ability for security Agencies to access journalists’ metadata.
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