[Chapter-delegates] Metadata collection comes under fire in new UN anti-surveillance draft resolution

[Narelle Clark]

[Call me cynical but I have to wonder if this one will get up. Note
links included in the online version… N]





Metadata collection comes under fire in new UN anti-surveillance draft
resolution

https://gigaom.com/2014/11/07/metadata-collection-comes-under-fire-in-new-un-anti-surveillance-draft-resolution/

Summary:
The draft proposal would make data retention laws taboo. As with the
earlier anti-surveillance resolution it builds upon, this one comes from
Brazil and Germany.


Germany and Brazil have drafted a new version of an anti-surveillance
resolution that the United Nations adopted late last year, this time
describing the collection of metadata as a "highly intrusive act."

The earlier resolution was also the product of German and Brazilian anger
over the mass surveillance revelations of NSA leaker Edward Snowden (well,
specifically their anger at their leaders being personally spied upon, but
we'll take righteous outrage where we can find it).

However, while it described the monitoring and collection of
communications and personal data as a threat to human rights, it didn't
talk about metadata - the logs of who contacted whom and when, or which
webpages people visit, as opposed to the contents of those communications
and webpages. These details also paint a vivid picture of a person's
activities and networks.

According to a Thursday Reuters report, the new draft says that arbitrary
surveillance and collection of metadata "violate the right to privacy and
can interfere with the freedom of expression and may contradict the tenets
of a democratic society, especially when undertaken on a mass scale."

Since the UN adopted the first resolution just before Christmas 2013,
there have been not one but two reports from high-level officials that
have detailed and condemned modern mass surveillance practices. The first
came in July this year from human rights high commissioner Navi Pillay,
who said data retention laws were disproportionate and "an interference
with privacy whether or not those data are subsequently consulted or
used."

Data retention laws - found in countries such as the U.K. and soon
Australia too - force communications providers such as ISPs to store
metadata for a fixed period so it can be queried by law enforcement and
intelligence services.

In October, the UN's counter-terrorism and human rights special
rapporteur, Ben Emmerson, issued another report that attacked many aspects
of international mass surveillance, but specifically noted that "it is
incompatible with existing concepts of privacy for states to collect all
communications or metadata all the time indiscriminately."

Brazil does not have a mandatory data retention law. The European Union
did have one but Germany only implemented it between 2008 and 2010, before
its constitutional court struck it down for violating the right to secrecy
of correspondence. The EU's highest court struck down the wider law in
April this year for violating fundamental rights, but the U.K. - which
uses data retention to spy on journalists and their sources, among other
things - not only maintained but expanded its metadata collection
practices.

The Reuters piece quoted Germany's UN ambassador, Harald Braun, as saying
the new draft resolution would "help pave the way towards better
protection standards." Apart from adding arbitrary metadata collection to
the naughty list, it also urges countries to give people an effective
legal remedy when their privacy has been violated by individual or mass
surveillance.






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Narelle Clark
Immediate Past President and Board Member
Internet Society of Australia
ph: 0412 297 043
int ph: +61 412 297 043
narelle at isoc-au.org.au
www.isoc-au.org.au
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