More Australians are seemingly interested in using a VPN service to protect their online data. Picture: Mark Ralston

AUSTRALIAN internet users are increasingly looking to adopt a VPN service as the government’s mandatory metadata retention laws come into effect.

Since the Easter weekend, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telco companies operating in Australia such as Telstra and Vodafone must collect and retain the metadata produced by all their customers.

The data includes personal information such as your name, address, date of birth and email addresses connected with the account. The laws also requires the storing of details such as the mode of communication, your location at the time, the length of the communication, who you were talking to and the type of network used.

Despite some confusion, the laws in Australia do not mandate the collection of web browser histories, however Telstra has shared such information with police in the past.

The list of Australian government departments that can theoretically access the information is wide ranging, meaning a larger part of your life has become accessible to these agencies, and the information collected could potentially be used to paint a fairly detailed picture of your life and habits.

For this reason, it seems a growing number of Australians are looking at using a VPN, or virtual private network, that masks the details of their online lives.

Phil is the operate of Vanished VPN which is based in Victoria and says his company has seen a nine per cent increase in subscribers joining the service in the last week.

“We have had a lot of customers specifically asking for our policy on data retention,” he told news.com.au.

He said he “definitely believes” the commencement of the metadata retention laws will continue to be good for business.

And his service is not the only one. Popular service NordVPN claims to have experienced a massive 200 per cent surge in inquiries from Australian internet users in a single week.

“We are worried about the global tendency to invade internet users’ privacy,” NordVPN’s CMO, Marty Kamden said in a statement.

“We want to stress that privacy tools are needed every day ... to protect yourself from ever-growing online security threats and increasing surveillance.”

VPNs have become increasingly popular in many Western countries in recent years as those online become concerned about their privacy and security.

The US recently repealed consumer privacy laws which made it theoretically possible for ISPs to sell off customers’ web browser histories to businesses.

Phil from Vanished VPN said the legislative change, as well as similar metadata laws enacted in the UK, have caused a spike in customers from the two countries.

Another service called Private Internet Access VPN — also popular among Australians — at the time of writing had a notification on its customer service page saying the company is experiencing “higher than average” customer requests “due to recent US legislation changes that let your internet service provider spy on you.”

AUSTRALIA’S CURRENT PRIVACY REGIME

When it comes to your online data and the privacy protections afforded to it, “there’s a lot we don’t know,” says Dr Jake Goldenfein from Swinburne University of Technology.

“Unfortunately we just don’t really know what ISPs are doing with data really,” he told news.com.au.

“(We don’t know) if it’s being anonymised and sold, or the degree to which the data they collect is being regulated by privacy law because evidently it depends on the structure of the data bases through which it’s retained.”

Australia’s data privacy laws only protect “personal information” and in January the Federal Court narrowed the definition for what that is.

In a watershed case, Telstra successfully argued that the metadata it collects such as geolocation was not personal information because it was stored separately from customer account information and therefore wasn’t identifiable.

“It was a big missed opportunity to actually clarify some of the big questions” around the use of people’s personal data, Dr Goldenfein said.

But if the data collected “has commercial value” then the ISP or telco would “of course” sell it to a third party, he said.

HOW DO VPNs WORK?

A VPN encrypts and routes your data through a secure tunnel before connecting to the internet, protecting any sensitive information and connecting a user through an alternative path than an ISP.

The only information visible to an ISP is that a user is connected to a VPN server and nothing else. All other information is encrypted by the VPN’s security protocol.

It is the easiest way to ensure your privacy (including the websites you visit) while online.

RISKS, COSTS AND SETTING UP A VPN

A number of VPN services are free while others will typically require a subscription fee, often somewhere around $3-10 a month.

As one Reddit user pointed out on the forum this week, not all free VPNs are dodgy, but plenty of free services can engage in dodgy practices.

The problem with adopting a VPN service is that the user basically has to trust that the company actually does what it claims, and that it doesn’t keep records or logs which it then sells. In the past, a number of Android VPNs were revealed to be unreliable.

So when looking for a VPN, it’s important to find a reputable one.

If you sign up with an online VPN service it is likely the company will give you an easy step-by-step guide to follow.

For iPhone users, you can add a VPN protocol by going to Settings > General > VPN > click “add VPN Configuration” and put in the server address and password.

For Mac users, you will find the VPN configuration by clicking on “Network” in System Preferences.

For Windows users, you will need to go to the Network and Sharing Center in the control panel and click “Change adaptor settings”.

VPN use is growing as Australians look to ensure their online privacy.Source:Supplied