Opening Pandora's box: Metadata and Civil Proceedings

The Attorney-General’s Department is inviting submissions to support a review by the Minister for Communications and the Attorney-General into access to telecommunications data in civil proceedings.

Jon Lawrence (https://twitter.com/efa_oz) is the Executive Officer of Electronic Frontiers Australia (https://www.efa.org.au/). EFA is an independent, national member-based non-profit that has been working to promote and protect digital rights in Australia since 1994.

Jon will talk about the historical background and political context of the data retention legislation including how we can potentially work with the Senate cross-benchers to force an urgent review of the entire scheme. He will also present the guidance developed by EFA's Policy Team for submissions on the issue of expanding the scope of the scheme to include civil cases.

This event is to discuss the issues to assist people wishing to make submissions to the Inquiry. A crowdsourced group submission (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cQ7jeqJOEB3hHBBNV8azfkiF6sXyV_-TPvvI5BMhdqw/edit?usp=sharing) is available for anyone wishing to add their name (once complete) more will be done on this after the event on the 11th.

To find out what kind of information is contained in the metadata that ISP's and telecommunications services must retain about you for 2 years check out SnitchHunt (https://whistleblower.network/snitch/datasets.php).

How it works:

Please arrive no earlier than 5:45PM (to avoid disrupting ThoughtWorks employees).
The meetup officially opens at 6PM, and there will be somebody to let people upstairs until about 6:15.
If you arrive after 6:15, you'll need to call the number on the door and someone will let you in.

There will be some snacks provided; we try to make sure that we cover vegan and gluten free.
If you have specific needs, or feel like bringing something to share, please bring some food.

About the Meetup:

Some weeks will have more action than others - speakers, experts, a particular focus.
We will update that week's event as it happens.
If you have something in particular you would like to learn (data privacy for instance), let us know and we'll work something out.
Open Knowledge Melbourne has a code of conduct (http://au.okfn.org/get-involved/code-of-conduct/).