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Metadata: is it simply 'billing data', or something more personal? Metadata: is it simply 'billing data', or something more personal?
(about 1 hour later)
Is metadata, as the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said on Monday, just “billing data”?Is metadata, as the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, said on Monday, just “billing data”?
Or is it, as Australian Greens communications spokesman, Scott Ludlam, said, also on Monday, “extremely intimate material”?Or is it, as Australian Greens communications spokesman, Scott Ludlam, said, also on Monday, “extremely intimate material”?
Both were responding to Guardian Australia's news report based on a secret 2008 document showing that Australia’s intelligence agency offered to share “bulk” amounts of its citizens’ metadata with intelligence partners in the US.Both were responding to Guardian Australia's news report based on a secret 2008 document showing that Australia’s intelligence agency offered to share “bulk” amounts of its citizens’ metadata with intelligence partners in the US.
On Monday, Abbott described metadata, the digital footprint generated when you use technology, as ‘‘essentially the billing data’’. He continued: ‘‘There’s a big difference between billing data and the actual content of calls.”On Monday, Abbott described metadata, the digital footprint generated when you use technology, as ‘‘essentially the billing data’’. He continued: ‘‘There’s a big difference between billing data and the actual content of calls.”
Ludlam on the other hand described metadata as “extremely intimate material that maps your financial records, your entire social networks, and your precise location everywhere you’re carrying your mobile phone around”.Ludlam on the other hand described metadata as “extremely intimate material that maps your financial records, your entire social networks, and your precise location everywhere you’re carrying your mobile phone around”.
It is Ludlam’s description of metadata that is the more accurate. As this Guardian guide shows, metadata can reveal highly detailed elements of your life. From the subject headings of emails, to the location you last used your mobile phone, to your likes and event history on Facebook to your Google searches, metadata can paint an almost forensic portrait of your digital and physical existence.It is Ludlam’s description of metadata that is the more accurate. As this Guardian guide shows, metadata can reveal highly detailed elements of your life. From the subject headings of emails, to the location you last used your mobile phone, to your likes and event history on Facebook to your Google searches, metadata can paint an almost forensic portrait of your digital and physical existence.
As the US congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told the Guardian in this interactive: “If you couldn’t learn anything from that data, they wouldn’t be collecting it.”As the US congresswoman Zoe Lofgren told the Guardian in this interactive: “If you couldn’t learn anything from that data, they wouldn’t be collecting it.”
Many experts argue that metadata can actually be more revealing than content itself. Whilst communications content reveals the detail of a conversation or chat, metadata can be used to piece together patterns of communication and correlate these with physical events. As such, rather than analysing unstructured conversations, which may take place in different languages or dialects and last for greater periods of time, analysis of metadata is highly structured.
In the US, the NSA stores millions of internet users metadata for up to a year in repository codenamed Marina. In an introductory guide to digital network intelligence NSA field agents are told that:
"The Marina metadata application tracks a user's browser experience, gathers contact information/content and develops summaries of target.”
It continues: "This tool offers the ability to export the data in a variety of formats, as well as create various charts to assist in pattern-of-life development."
In the US, metadata is stored on the Marina repository regardless of whether a user is a person of interest to the agency.
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