ATO may get direct telco metadata and bank data access

Digital Rights
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I sometimes feel like I eat Orwellian muesli for breakfast and don’t even break a cold sweat, but this one ticked a number of boxes on my ‘what the’ list … On the surface they are trying to catch criminals, and that’s OK, but how many ‘police forces’ do we need? If the AFP aren’t keeping up or delivering the goods, why create another force when we could help/reform/bolster the AFP for example (one option)?

If this happens, will Centrelink be the next agency fitted for hobnail boots to kick down our doors? I tend to think if there is a problem, fix it, don’t create another one.

The actual paper is here: https://static.treasury.gov.au/uploads/sites/1/2018/11/Consultation-Paper-Improving-black-economy-enforcement-and-offences.pdf

A few select quotes from the article … the paper is best read in complete context.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) could be allowed to directly access telecommunications metadata and other records such as those held by banks under a proposal aired by Treasury late last week.

[…]

Under existing laws, the ATO must strike up a joint investigation with the Australian Federal Police to obtain telco metadata or compel information from other third parties like banks.

Treasury claims that is “often impractical” for “low to mid-range black economy conduct”, adding “weeks” to investigations, “allow[ing] black economy participants to operate for longer periods of time and, in some instances, avoid detection altogether.”

It is proposing to designate the ATO as a criminal law enforcement agency to provide the tax office direct access to telecommunications metadata.

The ATO - a tax collecting agency - must go to the police if something criminal is taking place. How inconvenient …

In addition to telco metadata, the ATO would also gain powers to compel others to hand over data - or additional tools to scrape it from the internet themselves.

“Third party information, especially data from banks, is fundamental evidence to prove most low to mid-range black economy criminal offences,” Treasury said.

[…]

Under the proposal, the ATO could also be given tools to scrape “internet traffic such as publically available or subscription based data to identify transactions indicating potential black economy behaviour.”

“This data can be used by the ATO and other enforcement agencies for enhanced data matching with income reported to authorities,” Treasury said.

I’m all for catching criminals and identifying criminal activity - but it is a job for the police in my view, in this case the AFP - if they need help, then finance and resource them accordingly, don’t create another police force …

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A similar issue where I think the pollies and ‘executives across government’ come from is exposed via ‘Border Security’ whereby Customs requires an Auspost staff to open suspect packages entering via international mail. A curious distinction in my mind whereby a postal worker can open a package and give it to customs, but customs cannot open it on their own.

As for giving the ATO powers, traditionally the police have to work within the laws they have while the ATO seems to be able to operate above them until challenged in court. The proposal appears to be a way to give a very heavy hand even more weight. :frowning:

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I think it was this review which was flagged back in April 2018 ABC article on ATO powers

The ABC & Fairfax already investigated the April 2018 ATO abusing its powers just to keep the staff KPIs up to the level required by ATO management.

The ATO is already their own investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury, with only the very expensive High Court available for appeal under the current ATO Act. They can do things no police or other ‘criminal agency’ can, such as entry and seizure without warrant.

I have been at the receiving end of an imbecilic determination by the ATO which directly contradicted the chapter and verse of their own guidelines and regulations. I asked for reconsideration, citing the relevant quotes. The answer didn’t even try to address the regulations and guidelines quoted, merely reiterated the decision.

Unfortunately, the experience of the small business community of which I was part, is that if you fight the ATO, they become vindictive and cause you MUCH pain and hardship.

The ATO is like ASIC, ACCC, APRA, etc, in that the ATO is despotic when dealing with small entities or individuals. Yet on the other hand, they kowtow up to the large entities who ‘minimise’ their taxation too often to the point of paying none, and ask permission to negotiate for some tokenistic penalties.

"Reverse the onus of proof for some black economy offences to reduce barriers to prosecuting such offences.
(Recommendation 8.3)"
They already have this, so this is just enshrining the imbalance of power between the ATO and the citizens.

This just seems like they lust for more power to go after the small fry instead of taking the tax big business tax avoiders head on.

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"Generally, it will take up to 12 weeks for the AFP to execute a warrant on banks which is then
compounded by the time taken for the banks to respond. "

So it looks like the proposed changes are because of the 12 week delay to get information from the request of the court sanctioned warrant to the banks releasing the requested information.

Shouldn’t there be investigation of why it takes three months to gain such information as it would cause unnecessary delay to a current police investigation.

I would have expected that it would take a matter of days to prepare the information for a court it issue a warrant, a day then to issue the warrant to the telco/bank and then 2-3 business days for the requested information to be provided to the investigating police.

12 weeks sounds like one of the parties (either police, court or the bank/telco) are unreasonably delaying the process and potentially statutory timeframes should be placed on the banks/telco to return the information. Other requests for information have maximum statutory timeframes, so why can’t the existing legal processes be amended to include such?

The police also need to get their act in order if it takes 12 weeks to serve a warrant. This is inefficiency to the highest degree.

The proposed solution seems a bit like taking a sledgehammer to a problem which would be solved with a paint job.

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It’s called ‘addressing the symptoms and not the cause’.

i would suggest the problems occur due to the lack of resources for judicial and law enforcement across the country.

If it is so important to recover taxation, why did our LNP Government cut the ATO staff who audit and do compliance on large businesses?

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Have you answered your own question?

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You are absolutely correct it was a rhetorical question, hidden inside a cynical statement, covered over by a straight face. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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OMGWTFBBQ!

The whole basis of our legal system is innocent unless/until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt by a jury of our peers. This has been steadily undermined in recent decades, including in the area of asset seizures where if your son is a drug dealer you may lose the house in which he lives with you.

One of the podcasts I listen to told a story from the US of a young black man travelling by train from his home town, with $5,000 in his pocket. Police found that he had that money, and were able to seize it on suspicion of his having maybe committed a crime - when in fact it was to get set up in his new town. Any onus of proof was on him!

It’s not just the legal community that is being under-resourced.

George Orwell set his predictions 30 years too early. Every government agency now sees the Internet as a treasure-trove of data that it’s salivating over. Of course, the ATO would be unable to cope with the amount of data it would be getting if this proposal gets up, but that’s not the point! We need the data because ‘bad people’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘paedophiles’, but are happy to use it against anyone who doesn’t have the capability to defend themselves in court.

In the meantime, they can’t touch the real bad actors because they are either lawfully avoiding paying any taxes or are offshore. And in some cases collecting the same data!

We are living in a period of transparency that has never been seen before, even in tribal societies. Our web searches tell strangers all of our most hidden thoughts… and it is still not enough for our governments? The latest episode of the podcast Download This Show (ABC) contains an interview with Simon Elvery, who decided to see where his search for vasectomy information went, and even a Victorian government agency was spreading it around! #DataLife project on Twitter.

That consultation paper says very little about the problem it is proposing to solve, the size and scope, or the ‘unintended consequences’. I would like to see/be involved in a Choice submission and campaign against this thought bubble-■■■-government policy, @BrendanMays . And please, my use of the three letters that are apparently being censored is entirely correct linguistically!

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Thanks @postulative, I’ll be sure to pass on the request in full :wink:

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