> Metadata logging is a theoretical issue

There are over 350,000 requests a year for metadata, about ~1000 a day. Any level of government can make a request, right down to local councils of towns with 2000 people. The oversight committee is comprised of three bureaucrats who have never found a single instance of the system being abused in years. In fact all the instances of misuse have been self-reported by agencies.

Metadata itself seems like an innocuous term but includes the location of every single mobile phone in the country. The enormous cost of all this is passed onto the consumer and the government doesn't subsidise reporting entities at all.

What exactly is "theoretical" about all that?