Australia's Victoria police defend use of phone, internet records

Australia's Victoria police defended their regular access to phone and internet records on Wednesday after it emerged they make up to 1,200 metadata requests per week.

Figures provided in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the Australian federal government's controversial data retention bill showed the Victorian force sought access almost 63, 000 times in 2013/14.

The other large states, New South Wales and Queensland, are yet to provide their figures but if details are consistent with Victorian and Australian Federal Police (AFP) figures, meaning the nation's combined police forces are likely to have sought access up to a million times in five years.

Metadata can be accessed without a warrant and includes the time and location of phone calls and the addresses of accessed internet domains.

Civil libertarians argue accurate profiles on any member of the public can be made from this data, amounting to an invasion of privacy.

Victoria Police Association secretary Ron Iddles defended the access and told the ABC the action was reasonable.

He used Jill Meagher, a woman killed on a Melbourne street after walking home from a bar, as a high-profile example.

"Without that information, some of the serious crimes wouldn't be solved and in particular the case of Jill Meagher would not have been solved without this data," Iddles said on Wednesday.

"We were able to track a particular phone which was contrary to the account which was given by the accused."

"If the public don't want us to have it then the crime solvability rate will definitely go down."

The Australian government wants to force telecommunications companies to retain all metadata on customers for two years. Endi