The Australian Federal Police wants more power over phone and internet data from residents nationwide.

The AFP says that if it cannot monitor phones then criminals could be getting away, as the pace of technology continues to outstrip the abilities of law enforcement.

The police want several changes. They would like ISPs to have to retain all available data on their customers for longer periods, and they want to be able to access and interpret that data without a warrant.

The AFP is primarily interested in mobile phone and internet device metadata – including the names and numbers and durations of phonecalls, the GPS location of the call or other location-linked activities, but not the actual content of the conversation.

“Companies aren't keeping this data necessarily or if they are keeping it, they're keeping it for inconsistent periods of time,” AFP's Tim Morris said.

“If law enforcement is going to have a chance of keeping up with evolving criminality, then we believe we have to have access to this kind of data; it's absolutely essential.”

Currently, intercepting calls or other electronic communications requires a warrant, but the AFP says metadata should be easier to access.

The call come amid an ongoing push to overhaul the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. A plan to have ISPs retain data for longer periods was shot down last year, but the AFP has begun the push again.

Jon Lawrence from Electronic Frontiers Australia says the combination of information available through metadata can be used just as intrusively as recording calls.

“The sort of information that's generated here, particularly when looked at in aggregate ... can generate a very, very specific profile on certain people very quickly,” he said.

“For example, if you're looking at Twitter communications, the metadata, the information about when and who and where associated with a tweet, is much bigger than the tweet itself.”

Mr Lawrence says pooling such data creates new risks in itself, especially in an environment with a government that does not have a stellar record of protecting the secrets it gathers.

“Just simply capturing all this data in one place is risky in the sense that it's open to misuse, it's open to being hacked or leaked,” he said.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says there is already too much information being gathered and used by crime-fighting authorities and private companies.

“Metadata allows for incredibly invasive, real-time snooping of innocent Australians and I don't think it should be available to anybody who wants it unless there's a warrant,” Mr Ludlam said.

“The policing agencies and the intelligence agencies need to take some responsibility.

“If it's okay to obtain a search warrant to listen in on your phone call, it should be okay to obtain a search warrant to spy on your location and your whole social network.”

In Europe, dozens of countries have signed up to the Data Retention Directive which forces companies to store metadata for up to two years.

The AFP made about 58,000 requests for metadata from telecommunication companies in the last financial year; about two thirds of the requests were seeking the IP address of possible criminals.