Edward Snowden criticises Australia's data retention laws

Whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has criticised the Australian government’s data retention laws, labelling them “dangerous.”

“This is not things that governments have ever traditionally been in power [to] claim for themselves as authorities,” he continued, speaking via satellite from Moscow at the Progress 2015 congress in Melbourne.

Australia’s data retention law requires internet companies to retain the metadata of customers (location of devices, IP addresses, and more) for two years, which government agencies can access without a warrant, unless they are accessing the metadata of a journalist for the purpose of investigating a leak.

Snowden warned that information collected about millions of Australian citizens is at risk of being shared internationally among government organisations.”What this means is they are watching everybody all the time, they’re collecting information and they’re just putting it in piles that they can search through, not only locally, not only within Australia, but they can then share this with foreign intelligence services,” he said. “The ultimate result there is the fact that regardless of whether or not you’re doing anything wrong, you are being watched.”