Internet founder claims governments can't be trusted with data

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 29/01/2013

Reporter: John Stewart

One of the founders of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, has attacked a proposal to store all Australians' internet data use, warning it could be misused and that governments can't be trusted to keep the information secret.


EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: One of the founders of the internet, British computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has attacked a proposal to store all Australian's internet data use for two years. The proposal is being considered by a joint parliamentary committee and would require internet service providers to keep a log of individual internet data. Sir Tim Berners-Lee says the information could be leaked or misused and governments cannot be trusted to keep it secret. John Stewart reports.

JOHN STEWART, REPORTER: The first internet was developed by the US military during the Cold War to protect their communication systems from a nuclear strike.

20 years later, Sir Tim Berners-Lee took the next step, helping to develop the worldwide web. The British computer scientist wants governments around the world to resist the temptation to spy on people and says that a proposal being considered by the Australian Government to log individual internet data use for up to two years will have little impact on criminals.

TIM BERNERS-LEE, COMPUTER SCIENTIST: If you do snoop on people, if you record, for example, the websites that somebody visits then you're not gonna get the criminals because they are gonna go through - they're gonna use Tor or they're gonna go through some intermediate nodes. They're gonna go to some trouble in order to just obscure it.

JOHN STEWART: Sir Tim Berners-Lee argues that if internet users believe the Government is recording their web history, they'll stop using it and limit the flow of valuable information.

TIM BERNERS-LEE: You will produce a world in which a teenager who really needs to go to an online forum to compare - to get some professional advice or really needs to know whether or not they're suffering from a given disease or wants to understand something about sexuality, medicine, growing up and realises that if they click they will be branded for the next two years as having gone to that site.

JOHN STEWART: He also says storing individual data logs is tricky and governments cannot guarantee that systems won't be hacked.

TIM BERNERS-LEE: That information is so dangerous. You have to think about it as dynamite. You have to think about if it gets away, what you've done is you've prepared a dossier on every person in the country which will allow them, if that dossier's stolen, to be blackmailed. Maybe you have every member of the Australian military will have this little dossier which will allow a foreign power to exert a huge amount of pressure on them.

JOHN STEWART: A spokesperson for the Attorney-General's Department says the Government has not made any decision about whether or not Australia should have a data retention regime and "The parliamentary committee has been asked to consider the concept of data retention in relation to non-content telecommunications information, which plays critical roles in police investigations. ... Metadata does not include the content of communications, only features such as dates and I.P. addresses assigned to a user that can be helpful for police and national security investigations."

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was speaking at the launch of the CSIRO's $40 million strategy to make better use of the National Broadband Network and increase online services in health, education and business.

STEPHEN CONROY, COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER: With services making up more than 70 per cent of our GDP, this flagship will be pivotal in addressing productivity.

JOHN STEWART: Sir Tim Berners-Lee welcomed the new CSIRO funding and called for governments around the world to make more information public and improve internet access for all.

John Stewart, Lateline.


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