BackThe Australian Federal Police agreed to make changes to how they access and use telecommunications data in line with a recent investigation report from the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The Australian Federal Police accepted all eight recommendations made by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Mr Michael Manthorpe PSM.
Telecommunications data, also known as ‘metadata’, is information about a communication, but does not include the contents or substance of that communication. The location of a mobile device from which a communication was made is an example of telecommunications data.
The investigation identified that many of the Australian Federal Police’s internal authorisations for location based telecommunications data made between 13 October 2015 and 2019 were not properly authorised or reported. This meant the privacy of individuals may have been breached unfairly and the Ombudsman could not rule out the possibility that incorrectly obtained data was used in prosecutions. ‘My investigation identified that the internal procedures and a cavalier approach to exercising telecommunications data powers resulted in a culture that did not promote compliance’, the Ombudsman said. ‘Australian law enforcement agencies rely on a wide range of covert and intrusive tools to do their work. To maintain public trust these tools need to be properly deployed, in accordance with the legislation which governs their use.’
The full report is available here. The Ombudsman will monitor action taken by the Australian Federal Police in response to the report and will continue to assist all law enforcement agencies to improve their compliance through our oversight of covert, intrusive or coercive powers.
Source: Commonwealth Ombudsman, Australia
