George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I refer you to what is the principal provision—proposed subsection 187A(1):

A person (a service provider) who operates a service to which this Part applies (a relevant service) must keep, or cause to be kept—

in accordance with proposed section 187BA—

for the period specified in section 187C:

(a) information of a kind—

specified in or under proposed section 187AA—

… or

(b) documents containing information of that kind;

relating to any communication carried by means of the service.

That is the primary obligation. That is the key provision of this bill. That is the obligation conferring provision of this bill. What it requires is for data to be kept, not created. You point to proposed subsection (6) of proposed section 187A, which might perhaps be regarded as an anti-avoidance provision. But the primary obligation is to keep that which is set out in proposed section 187AA for the period set out in proposed section 187C—that is, two years—in accordance with proposed section 187BA, which specifies the manner in which the data is to be kept.

Senator, if you keep proposed section 187A(1) foremost in your mind, I think you will understand what the purpose and effect of this bill is. In relation to the question of whether or not the bill mandates the status quo, it does, because what it mandates is a common industry standard. I have acknowledged—and it has never been controversial—that there are variable practices, because this is an industry with a multiplicity of players. I know, Senator Ludlam, you know this industry well. It has a multiplicity of players with various commercial practices in relation to both datasets and retention periods. So, of course, when you standardise and make uniform across an industry so described a single obligation then there are going to be variances in the way in which individual industry players retain data at the moment and what they do in compliance with the statutory obligation that will be imposed upon them. But what it is designed to do is to reflect and make uniform a common industry standard.