Well, this is awkward.
A Sky News interview with Attorney-General George Brandis has been branded a ‘car crash’ after he appeared confused about what a web address actually was.
In the interview, Brandis clumsily attempts to explain details of the Federal government’s controversial “data retention” policy, which would force telcos to log their customers’ ‘metadata’ for up to two years.
Take a look at this extract. We promise that, 14 seconds in, you’ll be chuckling and cringing at the same time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDKovLg7xpM
Look, metadata is confusing. It’s kind of like the cloud – everybody’s heard of it in some round about way, but nobody really knows what it is.
In a very basic nutshell, metadata is information about people’s online and telephone behaviour. People are concerned about metadata because it obviously affects their privacy online. It’s not entirely clear which parts of our online behaviour are considered metadata, and that’s where everybody seems to be confused. So – if you buy some shoes on ASOS, is the style and size of the shoes you bought stored as metadata, or just the fact that you went to the website?
Nobody seems to know any details.