CANBERRA: Doubts have been raised as to whether Australia’s customs officials have been lawfully accessing people’s text messages and other kinds of data. The Commonwealth Ombudsman was scathing of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in a review tabled in parliament on Tuesday. The report follows inspections of 20 agencies and their use of powers to access metadata and stored communications to ensure they are compliant. It finds Customs does not have sufficient processes in place to prove that it’s only dealing with lawfully accessed stored communications such as SMS. There are also insufficient procedures in place to ensure that information is properly received and destroyed. “We have no confidence in Customs’ record-keeping practices, and therefore in its ability to account for its use of these powers,” the report says.
The ombudsman notes the agency, other than staff from one branch, was not co-operative in providing access to relevant information. It was also “not well co-ordinated or prepared for” an inspection by the ombudsman’s office in February last year. It has made three recommendations, including the establishment of a new record-keeping and reference system for its stored communications warrants and preservation notices. Customs, in response, acknowledged the record-keeping shortfalls, noting that that period of the review was a time of “significant organisational disruption” as it integrated with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. It plans to have robust and transparent arrangements in place by July this year.
