Note: I have excluded (or marked out) any commentary taking significant funding from the Agency or the Department of Health on all this to avoid what amounts to paid propaganda. (e.g. CHF, RACGP, AMA, National Rural Health Alliance etc. where they were simply putting the ADHA line – viz. that the myHR is a wonderfully useful clinical development that will save huge numbers of lives at no risk to anyone – which is plainly untrue) (This signifies probable ADHA Propaganda)
-----
Note: I have also broadened this section to try to cover all the privacy and security compromising and impacting announcements in the week – along with the myHR. It never seems to stop! Sadly social media platforms also get a large run most weeks. There are a lot of actors out there trying all sorts of things on!
-----
My Health Record: Supporting delivery of care in paediatrics
Details
Webinar ADHA Propaganda
Hosted by : Australian Digital Health Agency
Tuesday, August 13, 2019 - 13:00 to 14:00
Online NSW 2000
Australia
This webinar is intended for healthcare providers caring for children; from early stages to adolescence.
The purpose is to provide an overview of the national My Health Record system, with an update on adoption across the health sector. Subject matters experts will highlight the clinical information available and how this may be utilised by healthcare providers in their day-to-day practice. Additionally, this session will clarify the privacy & consent obligations and security features supporting the national system.
Please note, registrations for this webinar will close 24 hours prior to the event. A copy of the presentation will be made available following the event to individuals who have registered to attend the webinar.
The purpose is to provide an overview of the national My Health Record system, with an update on adoption across the health sector. Subject matters experts will highlight the clinical information available and how this may be utilised by healthcare providers in their day-to-day practice. Additionally, this session will clarify the privacy & consent obligations and security features supporting the national system.
Please note, registrations for this webinar will close 24 hours prior to the event. A copy of the presentation will be made available following the event to individuals who have registered to attend the webinar.
-----
Using My Health Record to support healthcare for kids on country
Details
Webinar ADHA Propaganda
Hosted by : Australian Digital Health Agency
Wednesday, August 21, 2019 - 13:00 to 14:00
Online NSW 2000
Australia
This webinar will focus on how Aboriginal Medical Service teams can use My Health Record to support their clinical practice, especially when providing healthcare for kids on country. The webinar will highlight some of the clinical and other information that can be found in a My Health Record and support clinical decisions when seeing a child.
It will also describe how clinicians can contribute to My Health Record to help ensure continuity of care for children. While the emphasis of this webinar will be on supporting healthcare for kids on country, the information may be applicable to other patients as well.
Please note, registrations for this webinar will close 24 hours prior to the event. A copy of the presentation will be made available following the event to individuals who have registered to attend the webinar.
-----
CCTV is watching students and teachers, but how much surveillance do schools need?
By William McKeith
July 14, 2019 — 12.00am
Schools are the new growth area for CCTV camera installation. In Australia and around the world, security systems are popping up in playgrounds, classrooms and, in some countries, even in locker rooms and bathrooms.
It is explained on the basis of securing schools against acts of violence, harassment, classroom bullying and, at worst, terrorism.
The public’s attention in NSW has been on the pressures on teachers to effectively use technology in classroom learning. However, the coming tsunami of concern and potential teacher industrial action is expected to be the powerful monitoring presence of security cameras in classrooms, corridors, laboratories, school libraries and school buses.
-----
Fighting a global opioid epidemic through digital surveillance
Following the unexpected death of his celebrity son over a decade ago, Kim Ledger is campaigning to reduce prescription drug-related deaths. Digital surveillance could be part of the solution.
By Lynne Minion
July 12, 2019 09:50 AM
Finding purpose from a place of pain, Kim Ledger is determined to help save lives. Eleven years after his son, Heath, died in a New York apartment from an accidental prescription drug overdose, Ledger is raising awareness of a global epidemic.
“I guess I became aware of the problem when my son was able to pick up prescriptions in three different countries over a period of four days to try and combat a pneumonia infection that he was trying to fight off,” Kim Ledger told Healthcare IT News sister publication HIMSS Insights.
“And then it was obviously a mixture of one or two of those, together with sleeping tablets, that caused him to sleep permanently, which was heartbreaking.”
-----
‘Spy tools’ track down patient Medicare fraud
- 12:00AM July 13, 2019
Serious Medicare fraud by would-be patients is now being detected using everything from complex data-matching to CCTV footage, as the federal government ramps up its compliance efforts.
The Department of Human Services referred 84 cases to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions before the 2018-19 financial year had ended — more than double the caseload from the year before.
While Medicare rebates are relatively small, about $1.1 million in total government funding was prevented from being wrongly claimed or raised as debts to be paid back by alleged rorters.
Government Services Minister Stuart Robert said a more sophisticated fraud detection program was introduced late last year, allowing the department to pursue bigger cases and prevent criminal interference in the Medicare system.
-----
AFP investigates as frail elderly’s records disappear
- 12:00AM July 13, 2019
Australian Federal Police are investigating allegations that the health records of 70 elderly residents were removed from a Gold Coast aged-care centre without permission, after a contract dispute left them homeless.
The dispute between operator People Care and subcontractor Help Street, responsible for the administrative, nursing, catering and other support services at the Earl Haven Retirement Village at Nerang, was the trigger for the evacuation of high-care residents on Thursday night.
A full-blown disaster response operation was launched on Thursday afternoon after a triple-0 call alerted health authorities that contracted staff were no longer treating patients. Up to 71 bedridden residents, some with dementia, were removed from the home in an emergency response-style evacuation — similar to that used in a flood or cyclone situation — and rehomed to nearby care centres on the Gold Coast. Three were hospitalised.
-----
Rise of the robots and the deepening economic divide
Amy Coopes on: July 11, 2019 In: digital technology, e-health, public health, Social determinants of health
As automation gathers pace and sophistication our economy will be transformed in ways yet to be seen, but the rise of the robots will displace millions of the most vulnerable workers from secure employment, deepening inequality, a new report warns.
According to the report ‘How Robots Change the World‘ from consultancy firm Oxford Economics, up to 20 million manufacturing jobs are expected to be lost to automation by 2030, with a disproportionate toll on lower-skilled workers and poorer regions.
“In many places, the impact will aggravate social and economic stresses from unemployment and income inequality in times when increasing political polarisation is already a worrying trend,” writes Oxford Economics CEO Adam Cooper in the foreword to the report.
The analysis shows that for every one robot installed worldwide, 1.6 people lose their jobs, but in any given country, this effect is roughly double in the poorest regions compared with the most wealthy:
-----
FTC votes to approve $7.1 billion settlement with Facebook
Jul 13, 2019 — 6.47am
Washington | The US Federal Trade Commission voted to approve a roughly $US5 billion ($A7.1 billion) settlement with Facebook.
The decision could end an investigation into the company's privacy practices, according to a person familiar with the matter but not authorised to speak on the record.
The deal also could result in unprecedented federal oversight of the company.
The settlement - adopted with the FTC's three Republicans supporting it and two Democrats against it -- could end a wide-ranging probe into Facebook's mishandling of users' personal information that began with the company's entanglement with Cambridge Analytica.
The matter rests in the hands of the Justice Department, which typically must finalise FTC settlements to end probes.
-----
Google search data used by pharma giant to bombard users with ads for addictive opioids
By the Specialist Reporting Team's Alison Branley
13 June, 2019
A manufacturer of highly addictive painkillers has been using data-matching techniques to track people's Google health searches and target them with ads that increase in intensity until they respond.
Key points:
- Pharmaceutical company Mundipharma uses health searches on Google to target ads
- The ads appear in web browsers and indirectly reference a brand of addictive oxycodone
- The banner ads get more intense until people click on them
Pharmaceutical giant Mundipharma and marketing agency Affinity produced a marketing campaign for the drug oxycodone, which used Google's ad searches tool to identify patients who were unhappy with their current pain medication.
As part of a pilot project in the Coffs Harbour area of New South Wales, they monitored Google searches to specifically identify patients who were looking up terms like "blocked up due to pain meds".
-----
Systems crash as Aussies rush for tax handout
Jul 12, 2019 — 3.08pm
Australians rushing to submit their tax returns and pocket the extra $1080 in their refunds from new tax cuts legislation, are a potential cause of a website crash, which has taken down numerous online services accessed through the myGov site.
The main online portal for federal government services went down on Friday morning, cutting off the way citizens are told to access services such as the Department of Human Services and the Australian Taxation office.
The ATO website claims the outage is 'scheduled maintenance.'
The myGov Twitter account was doing brisk business as Australians took to the social network to complain about being unable to deal with anything related to their tax returns or Centrelink.
-----
Australians unable to complete tax returns as MyGov websites goes down
By Tom Cowie
July 12, 2019 — 11.17am
The federal government's MyGov website is down, causing widespread issues for people trying to complete their tax returns and access other important services.
The website was showing a proxy error after 10am on Friday. MyGov provides online access to the ATO, Medicare and Centrelink.
MyGov confirmed to frustrated users on Twitter that the portal was having technical problems: "We are urgently investigating the issue and we’re working hard to fix this as quickly as possible."
It comes during a busy tax time, as thousands rush to file their returns to get the $1080 boost to their refunds this year contained in the Coalition's tax cuts legislation.
-----
11 July 2019
Digital records leave us drowning in old paper files
The recent case of paper medical files from a Brisbane hospital found on a busy street highlights the need for secure, controlled disposal of medical records.
The files were said to be from out-patient clinics and contained patient names and their appointments, but not medical details. Now Queensland Health is investigating the circumstances of how the files came to be found in public, rather than being safely destroyed by a contractor.
So how are hospitals and clinics handling their old paper records as they move to electronic systems? How are they dealing with the tsunami of files that need to be safely disposed of?
Your medical records, whether paper or electronic, need to be kept while they’re relevant to your care, with restricted access to protect your privacy. But who decides when medical records are no longer needed? What happens then?
-----
Google listens to user speaker recordings, company admits
By Rachel Lerman
July 12, 2019 — 9.38am
Google contractors regularly listen to, and review some recordings of, what people say to artificial-intelligence system Google Assistant, via their phones or through smart speakers such as the Google Home.
The Assistant understands and responds to voice commands given to it, answering queries about the news and weather as well as being able to control other internet-connected devices around the home.
A Sony speaker that features Google Assistant. Recordings captured by smart speakers, or your phone, after the Assistant has been summoned are stored by Google.
The company acknowledged that humans can access those recordings after some of its Dutch language audio snippets were leaked.
-----
Anti-5G campaigners raise funds for 'mother of all David and Goliath battles'
Telcos, agencies attempt to curb 'misinformation'
George Nott (Computerworld)11 July, 2019 14:34
On a chill Sunday evening late last month, 70 concerned citizens packed into Addison Road Community Centre in Sydney for a 5G information evening.
A man with wild hair and a bushy grey beard met me at the entrance. “Welcome brother,” he said as I entered.
A documentary about the dangers of wireless radiation – Generation Zapped – was playing. Two older ladies busily scribbled down notes. A young man in a hoodie covered in vegan slogan patches kept whispering loudly to his partner: “See?!”
This was Sydney’s first ‘Community Forum Exploring the Hidden Dangers of 5G Radiation’, one of a number of similar information evenings held across the country in recent weeks.
-----
IBM favours law to make online platforms liable for content
Tech giant IBM has said it favours changes to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make Internet companies accountable for content that their users post on their platforms.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Ryan Hagemann, the company's Government and Regulatory Affairs Technology Policy executive, said IBM would back "reasonable, considered measures to regulate online activities that are clearly illegal".
He said that meant taking a look at Section 230, which right now prevented any provider of an "interactive computer service" from liability for any action that occurred on that platform, irrespective of whether the provider turned a blind eye to the illegal activity or not.
-----
ATO crackdown on myGov rorts
By Justin Hendry on Jul 11, 2019 7:00AM
Swoop on online claim fraud by tax agents.
The Australian Taxation Office will closely monitor tax returns lodged through the government’s online services platform myGov after some tax agents were found rorting the channel by faking self-prepared returns for clients.
Amid the slew of taxpayers racing to claim a hefty refund this tax time, the ATO this week warned it had detected instances where tax agents were “inappropriate[ly]” using the portal to manage the tax affairs of individual customers.
Tax agents are only permitted to use dedicated portals such as the ATO’s new tax agent platform known as online services for agents to manage the affairs of their clients.
The distinction is an important one because there is a strong professional onus on tax agents not to submit dodgy claims for deductions. Lodgement through the agent portal also allows the ATO drill down into tax agent claiming behaviour and help guide industry behaviour.
-----
Open Banking - Where are we up to?
On 1 July 2019, the Federal Government launched its pilot program for Open Banking, involving the big four banks. Under the pilot program, ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac are required to share generic product data as the first step in testing the performance, reliability and security of the Open Banking system.
Under the revised implementation timeline announced by the Treasurer late last year, the official launch date for Open Banking was delayed by seven months to 1 February 2020. For more details, see our previous insight “Launch of Open Banking delayed” here.
This Insight looks at what has happened over the last six months and considers where Australia is up to with the launch of Open Banking.
-----
Australian Digital Health Agency – Invitation to express an interest in participating in the Australian Digital Health Agency’s Customer Participation Program as a Consumer Advisor
The Australian Digital Health Agency is calling for expressions of interest from interested and suitably qualified consumers to be engaged as Consumer Advisors.
The Agency has established a Customer Participation Program that will include a panel of Consumer Advisors who are individuals with lived experience across health and health-related conditions and diseases, with experience across varying fields of the healthcare sector. The Customer Participation Program supports the delivery of high quality, safe, useful and usable products and services and their work is embedded in the Agency’s product development lifecycle.
Applicants should complete the Application form and submit this together with an up to date CV to: stakeholderengagement@digitalhealth.gov.au.
Applications close Friday, 19th July 2019.
To read more click here
-----
Home Affairs dragging its feet on metadata reporting obligation
By Bevan Shields
Updated July 10, 2019 — 10.03amfirst published July 9, 2019 — 11.00pm
The department responsible for the nation's metadata retention regime is falling behind on its legal obligation to tell the public how many times powerful new laws were used to intercept the communications of Australians, including journalists.
The Department of Home Affairs has also failed to meet the deadline for lodging a submission with a major parliamentary review of the Abbott-era legislation, which is under fire following revelations the Australian Federal Police used it to access the phone and internet records of reporters nearly 60 times in just one year.
Nine Political Editor Chris Uhlmann has spoken about the AFP raids on the ABC and a News Corp journalist's home.
-----
Regulators big users of data retention laws
Jul 9, 2019 — 3.49pm
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has used controversial data retention laws 5000 times to investigate cases of insider trading, market manipulation and fraud, new figures show.
But the corporate regulator warns it is getting harder to investigate white-collar crime because suspects increasingly use encrypted messaging applications and virtual private networks to evade detection.
Since the introduction of the metadata laws in October 2015, ASIC has used them to help secure convictions for 72 people, the regulator told Parliament's joint committee on intelligence and security, which is conducting a review of the legislation.
Under the laws, telecommunications companies and internet service providers are required to keep their customers' phone and internet records, such as the time, date and length of calls and who they were between, or time and date emails were sent and their receipt.
-----
How medicine is scrambling to keep pace with the gene therapy revolution
Dr Finkel (PhD) is a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and a former biochemist and research scientist.
9th July 2019
Gene therapy — for so long something that belonged to the future — has just hit the streets.
A couple of weeks back, you might have picked up a headline alerting us to the most expensive drug in history — a one-off gene therapy cure for spinal muscular atrophy. Novartis have priced the drug Zolgensma at $A3 million.
Traditionally a parent of a baby with spinal muscular atrophy was told: take your baby home and love her or him. Have no false hope, the baby will die paralysed and unable to eat or talk by the age of two.
What’s the narrative going to be now? There is a cure but it costs $3 million.
-----
Important role for government in online safety
By Paul Fletcher
July 8, 2019 — 11.19pm
When you get into a car, you expect that safety has been incorporated into its design – the
brakes and seatbelts will work and the airbags will deploy when needed.
brakes and seatbelts will work and the airbags will deploy when needed.
A major hurdle to Australians staying safe online is that many of today’s most popular digital products and services have not been designed with user safety in mind.
If we bring these expectations to the 19 million cars registered in Australia, why would the 22 million Australians who are active online not have the same expectations?
The Morrison government believes Australians are entitled to expect that safety has been
designed into the online services, platforms and apps that they use every day.
designed into the online services, platforms and apps that they use every day.
-----
Federal police accessed the metadata of journalists nearly 60 times
By Bevan Shields
Updated July 8, 2019 — 11.48pmfirst published at 11.45pm
The Australian Federal Police used national security laws to access the metadata of journalists nearly 60 times in just one year, according to a new disclosure that will be used to pressure the Morrison government to strengthen press freedom.
As Labor demanded answers over revelations the AFP asked Qantas to hand over the private travel records of a senior ABC journalist, documents submitted to a review of Australia's mandatory data retention regime have for the first time revealed the extent to which police have examined the communications history of reporters.
Attorney-General George Brandis struggles to explain the government's proposed metadata retention laws in a Sky News TV interview.
-----
Failed ACIC facial recognition project ‘premature’, ‘poorly scoped’: Inquiry
Management of ACIC biometrics contract ‘deeply flawed’
A bungled biometrics project that cost the government at least $26 million was “premature” and “poorly scoped,” a parliamentary inquiry has concluded.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) in June 2018 revealed that it had terminated a contract with NEC Australia to implement the Biometric Identification Services (BIS) project. CrimTrac, which is now part of ACIC, in 2016 awarded NEC the contract for the $52 million project.
BIS was intended to replace the aging National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), offering both fingerprint and facial recognition capabilities.
ACIC CEO Michael Phelan said the decision to dump the BIS project was a result of delays in implementing the new system.
-----
Home tech makes us feel addicted, isolated and yet connected
Jul 9, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia's addiction to technology has reached plague proportions, and it's taking its toll on the national psyche, a new study has found.
More than half of younger Australians, some 55 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 34, report they feel addicted to technology, and most younger Australians have come to believe technology in the home can be a barrier to social interaction, can be intrusive in the way it collects data, and can make them dependent and lazy, according to surveys conducted for a report, Putting the Human First in the Future Home, just released by the global consulting giant Accenture.
Addiction and dissatisfaction rates weren't quite as high for the overall population as they were for the younger population, however. Only 42 per cent of Australians of all ages said they were addicted to tech, and slightly less than half of the overall population (48 per cent) found technology in the home was invasive.
-----
How the government must learn from its NBN failure with big tech
Updated Jul 9, 2019 — 8.16am, first published at 12.00am
While it may wish it to be otherwise, the government in Australia – and indeed governments around the world – are slowly waking up to the fact that the debates they could previously have written off as fringe nerd-talk are now mainstream, and require intelligent forethought and response.
Big tech regulation and the messy failure of the National Broadband Network are no longer solely conversation topics of the IT crowd, but are increasingly understood by the regular citizens, who government could previously fob off.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is now in possession of the competition regulator's highly anticipated report into the power of digital platforms like Google and Facebook, and is going to have to make very sure that he frames his responses correctly.
-----
‘Most doctors’ don’t find My Health Record useful
8:53
Newscorp’s National Health Reporter Sue Dunlevy says ‘most doctors’ she speaks to do not find the My Health Record system useful, as GPs usually already have a record of their patients’ health on their own computers. Speaking with Sky News, Ms Dunlevy says it would be useful for specialists, but ‘very few’ specialist practitioners are registered to use it, so they aren’t looking at it. Ms Dunlevy also notes that only 55 per cent of private hospitals are registered to use the record system, while only three-quarters of public hospitals are signed up, contributing to the slow rollout.
- July 8th 2019
-----
4 in 10 Aussies can’t access their My Health Record
23 hours ago / 05:06
Tim McMillan & Jane Marwick
New research reveals four in ten people have no way of accessing their My Health Record. To access your record you need to have a MyGov account, 23 million Australians have a My Health Record, only 15 million people have a MyGov account.
The Federal Chair of the AMA Ethics Committee, Dr Chris Moy spoke with Tim and Jane about other ways you can access your My Health Record. – “It comes down to the fact that not a lot of people are I.T. savy. You can get information about it and control it [My Health Record] by ringing the hotline number which is 1800 723 471.”
If you do have a MyGov account and want to further information. Call the MyGov helpdesk on 13 23 07, and select Option 1.
Download this podcast here
Tim McMillan & Jane Marwick
-----
Australian law behind the times on deepfake videos
Jul 8, 2019 — 3.05pm
Deepfake videos will rage like a bushfire through social media, doing grave damage to society if social media companies and the technology for creating the fake videos are left unchecked by lawmakers, a technology think tank has warned.
The emerging technology, which uses the deep-learning techniques of artificial intelligence to create fake videos that can be difficult to discern from real videos, is already "testing the capacity of lawmakers to keep up", said Ashley Brinson, executive director at the Warren Centre, an engineering, technology, and innovation think tank based at the University of Sydney.
Combine that technology with social media platforms such as Facebook, which allow fake videos to spread globally in seconds, and the world is facing a "perfect storm" of social destabilisation, he warned.
-----
Seventh (7.3 Downtime) Clinical Safety Review of the My Health Record System
Assessing downtime management best practices for clinical safety in health IT systems
Downloads
Seventh (7.3 Downtime) Clinical Safety Review of the My Health Record System
Download File - 526 KB
We aim to provide documents in an accessible format. If you're having problems using a document with your accessibility tools, please contact us for help.
Description
Downtime is a period of time that an IT system is not available, or only partially available, due to planned maintenance or an unplanned incident. In health care, downtime has an increased ability downtime to disrupt service delivery and pose risks to patient safety increases as digitisation of electronic records, formularies, order entry, results reporting, decisions support and other elements of clinical care and documentation.
Publication year 2017
Resource type Publication, report or update
-----
Lawyers are now free to cherrypick defamatory Facebook comments, looking for nuggets of gold
Social media comments are an online free-for-all. After the Dylan Voller case, media organisations have the impossible task of stemming the tide
Mon 8 Jul 2019 14.19 AEST Last modified on Mon 8 Jul 2019 14.22 AEST
The ramifications of Justice Stephen Rothman’s decision in the Dylan Voller case haven’t filtered downstream. Media organisations now are on notice as to their hip-pocket liability for the mean, ignorant, beastly, defamatory muck that is frequently peddled by readers in response to story items posted on their associated Facebook pages. Yet the rest of the world hasn’t given a toss.
The quality and quantity of the comments continues apace. Only last Thursday when Mike Baird ruled himself out of contention for the top job at the National Australia Bank, the comments about the former NSW premier on the Sydney Morning Herald Facebook feed would be manna from heaven for a half-competent lawyer in the defamation business.
Bob Brown also might have needed compensation as a result of Facebook comments on 3 July in connection to a “discussion” between Andrew Bolt and Rowan Dean on Sky News about “activist” crowdfunding to stop Adani.
-----
Google suspends New Zealand 'trending' emails after suspect's name released
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed disappointment about Google's failure to abide by a court order
Google has suspended an email alerting system in New Zealand following criticism by the government for publishing suppressed details of a murder case, the company said on Friday.
The suspension of the service comes as the Alphabet-owned giant and its peers, such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as governments around the world, wrestle with the question of responsibility for the content published on the platforms.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed disappointment about Google's failure to abide by a court order suppressing the name of a man accused of killing 22-year-old British backpacker Grace Millane.
-----
8 July 2019
The deadly perils of not investing in medical AI
“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”
– Amara’s Law
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has a public relations problem in Australia. It’s been coming so long, with such hype and promise, and failed to deliver so spectacularly – IBM Watson and cancer diagnosis, as the most recent example – many in the sector aren’t really sure what is going on.
Last month, one of our most recognised experts in the field of medical AI, Professor Enrico Coiera, The Director of the Australian Institute of Health Informatics, made the situation clear. Medical AI is here and gathering momentum, and unless we organise ourselves faster for this change we could miss out on significant opportunities locally, or worse, end up with AI medical failures through poor governance and education.
Professor Coiera said Australia would never likely be a hub for serious medical AI development, given the march of the major global digital distribution platforms such as Google, Apple and Amazon, but that the Australian healthcare ecosystem was an ideal testing ground for major overseas investors and this was a way in for this nation to participate meaningfully in this revolution.
-----
Frydenberg puts Facebook and Google on notice over market power
By David Crowe
Updated July 7, 2019 — 11.52pmfirst published at 11.00pm
Why it matters
- Google claims to carry out 90 per cent of all Australian internet searches from desktop computers and 98 per cent from mobile phones.
- Facebook says it gets monthly visits from 68 per cent of Australians.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has warned Facebook and Google to expect stricter curbs on their market power in the clearest sign yet that the Morrison government is determined to tackle the might of the US tech giants and boost competition in the $8 billion digital advertising market.
Mr Frydenberg told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that the growing power of the internet meant there were “genuine competition issues” to address in an imminent report on the digital economy to be released by the competition regulator.
In comments that signal the government’s willingness to tighten supervision of the dominant digital platforms, Mr Frydenberg added there were concerns about the privacy of millions of consumers' personal information at a time of soaring use of social media and online search engines.
-----
Boards paying cyber ransoms should quit
James Turner
Updated Jul 8, 2019 — 10.07am, first published at 10.00am
Ransomware cases, where organisations are hit by a cyber attack and receive financial demands for the return of documents or systems, are exploding globally ... and in a disappointing number of the severe attacks, the victim organisations are responding by paying the ransom.
But, any executive who authorises the payment of ransomware should, as their next act, tender their resignation for total failure of leadership.
By authorising a ransomware payment, an executive is admitting that they have failed to adequately prepare their organisation for operations in the 21st century. The board should also be held to account.
From the start of this month the Australian Prudential Regulation Authorities CPS 234 standard came into effect, which essentially means the boards of regulated organisations are ultimately responsible for the security of their organisation’s data. Nine
-----
Treat or trick: we asked people how they feel about sharing fitness data with insurance companies
July 8, 2019 6.10am AEST
Author
- Dr Sven Tuzovic
Senior Lecturer, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology
From the Fitbit to Apple’s smartwatch, wearable tech is becoming increasingly popular across the globe. Compared to other nations like US, which has seen higher adoption of fitness trackers, uptake in Australia is still less than 10% in 2019. But news reports indicate that Australians are taking to fitness monitoring more than ever before.
And wearable devices are not only being embraced by consumers, but also across insurance industries. Health and life insurance companies collect data from fitness trackers with the goal of improving business decisions.
Hollywood actor Christopher Walken was the spokesperson for Qantas’s 2016 Assure campaign.
Currently, these business models work as a “carrot” incentive. That means consumers can benefit from discounts and cheaper premiums if they are willing to share their Fitbit data.
But we could see voluntary participation become mandatory, shifting the incentive from carrot to stick. John Hancock, one of the largest life insurance companies in the United States, has added fitness tracking with wearable devices to all of its policies. Though customers can opt out of the program, some industry experts argue that this “raises ethical questions around privacy and equality in leaving the traditional life insurance model behind”.
-----
Comments more than welcome!
David.
In today's media: "Health Minister Greg Hunt’s promised medical fee transparency website has hit a snag, with leading physicians warning they will not participate in a 'meaningless' political exercise."
ReplyDeleteAnother ill thought through scheme from the department of health or maybe the ADHA - after all it is a digital thing.
Considering the total dependency on doctors, this is not a good way to get them to use my health record.