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This weekly blog is to explore the larger issues around Digital Health, data security, data privacy, AI / ML. technology, social media and related matters.
I will also try to highlight ADHA Propaganda when I come upon it.
Just so we keep count, the latest Notes from the ADHA Board are dated 6 December, 2018! Secrecy unconstrained! This is really the behaviour of a federal public agency gone rogue – and it just goes on! When you read this it will be near 16 months of radio silence, and worse, while the CEO, COO and the Chief of Staff have gone, still no change. I wonder will things improve at some point – so far seems not?
Note: Appearance here is not to suggest I see any credibility or value in what follows. I will leave it to the reader to decide what is worthwhile and what is not! The point is to let people know what is being said / published that I have come upon.
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ACCC formally investigates Google’s takeover of Fitbit
1:07PM February 27, 2020
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has launched an inquiry into Google’s $US2.1 billion acquisition of fitness tracking company Fitbit, amid competition concerns.
The deal, announced in November last year, was previously a watching brief, but the ACCC has stepped up its examination into a formal investigation.
Among issues worrying the ACCC is whether Google uses Fitbit to deliver targeted health ads.
The deal is also subject to review by other competition regulators around the world.
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Register for the My Health Record Webinar
Wednesday 4 March 6pm -7pm AEDT
26 February 2020: ADHA Propaganda
Understanding how to register and upload to My Health Record can be challenging. Join Professor Steven Boyages as he interviews Carey Doolan from the Australian Digital Health Agency to provide practical advice to help you register and upload to My Health Record. To register for this webinar on 4th March 2020, 6-7pm AEDT go to here.
For information about how the National Allergy Strategy is working with the Australian Digital Health Agency to improve the quality of patient allergy information in My Health Record go to NAS - Digital Health Agency
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My Health Record Workshop (Good Things Foundation program supported by the ADHA. ADHA Propaganda
Free
Description
This 90 minute Workshop will introduce participants to the ‘My Health Record’. My Health Record is an online platform allowing healthcare professionals to share information with each other as well as the patient, to help give a clearer and more complete picture of a person’s health to aid in their treatment.
This session will give learners an overview of the platform, along with the opportunity to access and use My Health Record.
Learning objectives: To increase learners’ knowledge and confidence in using My Health Record and be able to make an informed decision about whether it’s something they would like to access for themselves.
Date: Monday, 23rd March 2020
Time: 1.30pm – 3.30pm
Location: Rosanna Fire Station Community House
Contact: E: office@rfsch.org.au; T: 9458 1935 W: www.rfsch.org.au
Gold Coin Donation
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ASIO: Relentless advance of technology was outstripping our capabilities
But the encryption legislation is helping, Director-General of Security Mike Burgess has said.
By Asha Barbaschow | February 25, 2020 -- 01:21 GMT (12:21 AEDT) | Topic: Security
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General of Security Mike Burgess has praised the introduction of new powers such as those contained within Australia's encryption legislation to help the spy agency combat the new battleground that technology has created.
Delivering his first annual threat assessment since he took the helm of ASIO, Burgess said encrypted communications do damage to intelligence coverage in 90% of priority counter-terrorism cases.
"And that's just counter-terrorism. In the counter-espionage world we are dealing with even more sophisticated targets," he explained.
"The government recognises this dilemma as do senior executives in the tech sector.
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Data breach action plan for health service providers
11 February 2020
Tags: health data breach
Health service providers should use this four-step plan to contain and manage a data breach involving personal information, including the My Health Record system. The plan has been developed by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Australian Digital Health Agency, Australian Cyber Security Centre and Services Australia.
A data breach occurs when information held by an organisation is compromised or lost, or is accessed or disclosed without authorisation. For example, unauthorised access to health records, or lost client data.
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Email highlighted as a key risk for data breaches
28 February 2020
Malicious or criminal attacks including cyber incidents remain the leading cause of data breaches involving personal information in Australia, with almost one in three breaches linked to compromised login credentials, a new report shows.
This includes phishing attacks which caused at least 15 per cent of data breaches notified to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) from July to December 2019.
The OAIC’s latest Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) Report warns organisations about the risks associated with storing sensitive personal information in email accounts.
Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk also highlighted the risk of harm to individuals whose personal information is emailed to the wrong recipient (9% of all breaches).
“The accidental emailing of personal information to the wrong recipient is the most common cause of human error data breaches,” Commissioner Falk said.
“Email accounts are also being used to store sensitive personal information, where it may be accessed by malicious third parties who breach these accounts.
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Malicious attacks continue to account for 64% of data breaches: OAIC
It's the first report since OAIC announced it would shift the NDB reporting scheme from a quarterly report scheme to a six-month one.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has revealed that there was a 19% increase in the number of data breaches reported under the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme between July and December 2019, compared to the first half of the year.
Specifically, the OAIC reported that 537 breaches were notified under the scheme, up from 460 in the previous six months.
This is the first half-year report produced by the OAIC since it announced in August that it would move from its quarterly reporting scheme to one every six months.
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Sims warns on Big Tech growth
The explosive acquisition-fuelled growth of the world’s large digital platforms is posing a significant challenge for competition authorities, Rod Sims says.
Mr Sims, chairman of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, called on global competition regulators to work together to meet this and other challenges, and consider whether traditional approaches to assessing mergers were withstanding the test of time.
“It is easy to suggest our markets would be more competitive if YouTube and DoubleClick were separate to Google, and if Instagram and WhatsApp were separate to Facebook,” he said in a keynote speech at International Competition Network’s merger workshop in Melbourne on Thursday.
“But predicting the future competitive effect of such acquisitions before they occur is extremely difficult.
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ASIC, ACCC give green light to 'screen scraping'
Feb 28, 2020 — 10.25am
Regulators said they will not intervene to stop fintechs accessing banking data via the process of 'screen scraping', providing a green light to the practice continuing despite the concerns of the Commonwealth Bank.
In a Senate committee hearing on Thursday evening, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said it is not planning to stop the controversial practice, which involves customers sharing banking passwords to allow start-ups to read their bank account data. ASIC said it was was not aware of any harm caused by the practice, which is widespread in the market.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also said that while it understood bank concerns about password sharing, screen scraping should not be stopped as the consumer data right - which will ultimately regulate the practice - is developed.
The ACCC also backed the "write" power for the consumer data right, which is currently being considered by King & Wood Mallesons partner Scott Farrell after a referral from Treasury.
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Thursday, 27 February 2020 02:20
Business email compromise Australia’s ‘most prevalent’ security threat
Business email compromise (BEC) was the most prevalent security threat in Australia in 2019, accounting for 23.6% of global attempts and placing Australia in the top two countries with the most attempted attacks - and with the healthcare sector globally remaining the most targeted industry.
Australia also landed in the top five countries with the greatest number of malware detections, with over 20 million detections blocked in 2019, according to cybersecurity firm Trend Micro in its 2019 security roundup report released on Wednesday.
Ransomware continued to be a mainstay cyber threat last year, according to the Trend Micro report, with globally the security firm discovering a 10% increase in ransomware detections, despite a 55% decrease in the number of new ransomware families.
The healthcare sector remained the most targeted industry globally, with more than 700 providers affected in 2019 - while in Australia, a number of Victorian hospitals fell victim to ransomware attacks in 2019, forcing the healthcare facilities to go offline entirely.
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My Health Record ADHA Propaganda
An initiative of the federal government, My Health Record is a secure online summary of an individual’s health information and is available to all Australians. Health care professionals authorised by their health care organisation can access My Health Record to view and add patient health information.
Updated Health Records
Through the My Health Record system, authorised health care professionals can access timely information about their patients such as shared health summaries, discharge summaries, prescription and dispense records, pathology reports and diagnostic imaging reports. This allows health care professionals to have the most up-to-date information on their patients which is important, especially in an emergency situation.
As a patient, community members can control what goes into their My Health Record and who is allowed to access this information. Individuals can choose to share their health information with their doctors, hospitals and other health care professionals.
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eftpos reveals new push into digital identity
By Julian Bajkowski on Feb 26, 2020 1:12PM
Could create common ID utility infrastructure for banks.
Australian made payments stalwart eftpos has revealed its intention to make a play for the local digital identity market, a move that could set up a new utility platform for local financial institutions under pressure from the Reserve bank of Australia to rein-in fraud and increase debit functionality.
Speaking at the Retail Live conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, eftpos’ chief product officer Matt Barr suggested the new locally minted credential could be used for age verification in online transactions, including using phones with biometric functions, for purchases like liquor deliveries.
In a transaction scenario presented to the conference, an online retailer would be able to ask for age verification from an ID credential service with the consumer then able to select that service to trigger a biometric check.
The creation of a common, localised digital identity platform using existing infrastructure players is likely to be highly appealing to banks and other authorised deposit taking institutions because it would spare duplicated efforts and avoid a potential ‘rail gauge’ scenario for merchants accepting payments.
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Keyboard warriors beware! You may yet be discovered
In recent weeks the Federal Court of Australia has made interlocutory orders in two different sets of proceedings relating to applications for preliminary discovery brought against Google. The applicants are seeking that Google divulge the identities of anonymous online users who the applicants allege have made defamatory statements against them. While the Federal Court has not substantively determined the application for preliminary discovery in either case, these decisions highlight a growing trend of preliminary discovery applications to identify anonymous online users for the purpose of defamation proceedings.
Live by the keyboard, die by the keyboard – defamation in the digital age
In order to succeed in an action for defamation, an applicant must establish that their reputation has been damaged as a result of a false statement to at least one third party.
The application of defamation law in the digital age is an emerging frontier in Australian jurisprudence. The publication of defamatory content on the internet is becoming an increasingly litigated area in the modern age, especially on social media platforms and with respect to online reviews.
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Competition watchdog ‘advancing many investigations’ into digital giants
ACCC has already launched one court action targeting Google
By Rohan Pearce
Editor, Computerworld | 25 February 2020 14:55 AEDT
The head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says that the ACCC is “advancing many investigations” in the wake of its Digital Platforms Inquiry.
“As outlined in the final report of our 2019 Digital Platforms Inquiry, the ACCC has concerns about consumers being misled over the collection and the use of their personal data, as well as a range of important competition issues, some also linked to data,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said today in remarks prepared for a Committee for Economic Development Australia event.
“It’s vital that we devote considerable resources to these issues given their dominance in all our lives and their effect on economic activity,” Sims told CEDA.
One of the recommendations of the ACCC’s inquiry, which concluded in mid-2019, was that the government establish a “specialist digital platforms branch” within the commission to boost scrutiny of the conduct and market power of companies such as Google and Facebook.
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Tuesday, 25 February 2020 22:46
Smartphones dominate the ‘digital experience’ research reveals
Australian consumers have traditionally been early adopters of new technologies and at the end of 2019 several key milestones were reached, according to research firm Telsyte which reveals that smartphones have now become the main digital device for more than half (51%) of Australians - with millions of Australians loyal to either their iPhones or Android smartphones.
Telsyte says this is driving an unprecedented boom in services and subscriptions based on mobile apps such as Streaming Video on Demand (SVOD), music, games, and eCommerce, with the study finding the Internet became “the main source of entertainment” for more than half (52%) of Australians for the first time in 2019.
Additionally, the fast adoption of smart speakers and smartwatches is driving new customer engagements which are becoming important for businesses looking to target early adoptions.
And this year’s study found Australian household had an average of 18.9 connected devices at the end of 2019, an increase from 17.0 in 2018.
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Existential threat of cybercrime
Renaud Deraison
With another edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos now concluded, global leaders have returned to their organisations with a fresh understanding of the macro existential threats that could impact their business or government.
As always, there’s plenty of food for thought. While the WEF’s annual Global Risks Perception Survey understandably highlighted environmental concerns and geopolitical risks as key priorities, cybersecurity was also high on the agenda.
From the recent ransomware attack on Toll to the hack last year that crippled a Melbourne heart clinic, organisations are starting to appreciate the danger posed by cyberthreats.
The WEF survey showed 76 per cent of respondents expected attacks against infrastructure to increase this year. In addition, 75 per cent of forum leaders expected cybertheft of money and data to increase in 2020, placing it as the eighth major risk to business on the list.
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Service delivery and data the keys to trust
Gisele Kapterian
Today, trust is the defining challenge for all institutions. The recently released Edelman Trust Barometer found trust levels in Australia in all major institutions have continued to decline. Governments are not immune.
Why do governments need to be innovative in their approach to service delivery, and why now?
It comes down to the social licence to operate. People allow the government to govern because they believe there is a net benefit. At the core is trust.
What was unclear until now was the extent to which basic, everyday interactions with governments could move the dial on this fundamental issue.
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Taming the creepy tech titans
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
February 25, 2020 — 12.00am
As governments around the world struggle in trying to tame the titans of the tech world, many are reaching for sticks. One government is reaching for the kryptonite. Four of the world's six biggest companies by market value are the so-called Big Tech firms of Apple, Google's owner Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook. They've had almost a quarter-century to run amok.
Google's chief in 2010, Eric Schmidt, said that his firm's job was to "get right up to the creepy line and not cross it". In truth, all these companies have gone way beyond the creepy line. Indeed, their businesses are built on it. By providing open freeways for bullying, hate speech, live-streamed atrocities, terrorist propaganda and recruitment, revenge porn, foreign meddling in elections, networking of paedophiles, illegal opioid sales.
And, less obviously but just as creepily, is the privacy problem. The Big Tech industry depends on "one-way-mirror operations engineered for our ignorance", in the words of Shoshana Zuboff, a Harvard professor emerita in social psychology. In the early age of online naivete, for instance, "we thought that we search Google, but now we understand that Google searches us", she says. She calls the new reality "surveillance capitalism", also the name of her book.
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Britain's top cop calls for law on police use of AI
By Elizabeth Howcroft on Feb 25, 2020 6:49AM
Wants government to create a legal framework for police use of new technologies.
Britain's most senior police officer on Monday called on the government to create a legal framework for police use of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Speaking about live facial recognition, which police in London started using in January, London police chief Cressida Dick said that she welcomed the government's 2019 manifesto pledge to create a legal framework for the police use of new technology like AI, biometrics and DNA.
"The best way to ensure that the police use new and emerging tech in a way that has the country's support is for the government to bring in an enabling legislative framework that is debated through Parliament, consulted on in public and which will outline the boundaries for how the police should or should not use tech," Dick said.
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Consumer Data Right privacy guidelines released
24 February 2020
Guidelines for business on how to safeguard consumers’ privacy under the Consumer Data Right (CDR) have been released by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) today.
Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said the guidelines aim to help businesses participating in the CDR system understand their privacy obligations to consumers.
“Strong privacy protections have been built into the Consumer Data Right system, which strengthens consumers’ rights to control and use their data and enables greater competition, consumer benefits and economic growth,” Commissioner Falk said.
“Data can only be shared at the consumer’s request, for a specific purpose and for a limited time period. Consumers also have the right to ask for their data to be deleted if the business no longer needs it.”
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Why caution is needed over online prescription services
Dr Penm (PhD) is a lecturer in pharmacy at Sydney University.
24th February 2020
Digital technology is making access to healthcare easier than ever before. Multiple websites and apps allow consumers to consult GPs and pharmacists from any location, at any time.
Recently, we’ve seen the emergence of apps that generate prescriptions almost instantly, removing the need for a person to visit their GP when they need a new prescription.
While this is clearly convenient, there are some possible drawbacks we need to consider.
People want convenience
Taking medicines as prescribed, without breaks, results in better health outcomes for the individual. It also produces substantial health system savings, by reducing ED visits and hospitalisations.
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24 February 2020
TMR podcast: Computers can’t read your clinical notes
Human language is hard for AI to wrap its circuit boards around at the best of times.
But the typos, abbreviations, spelling mistakes, redundancy and messy structure of clinical notes makes it the worst-case scenario for text mining.
Lots of research teams are trying to solve this problem – but it’s proving much more difficult than anyone expected.
You can subscribe to The Medical Republic podcast on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts by searching for ‘The Medical Republic”.
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Beware the potential bias of datasets and AI
Authored by Jane McCredie
AFTER colour film came into general use in the mid-20th century, manufacturer Kodak sent out reference cards to help developers achieve the best colour matching in photographs.
The so-called Shirley cards, distributed for several decades from the 1950s, showed smiling Caucasian women with porcelain complexions.
On many of the reference cards, the women’s skin colour was labelled “normal”.
Defining one particular kind of skin – one particular kind of human – as normal, and all others as deviations from that norm, can have serious consequences for a range of social outcomes including health.
Historical under-representation of women in cardiovascular studies, and the resulting extrapolation from data collected in men, has been linked to underdiagnosis and undertreatment of female disease
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Sunday, 23 February 2020 18:25
Govt security watchdog seeks additional oversight of encryption bill powers
The government's Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, Dr James Renwick, has indicated he would support the security appeals division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal having oversight of technical capability notices issued under the encryption law passed in 2018, and resolving any issue that could arise.
Dr Renwick held two days of hearings in Canberra on Thursday and Friday last week, meeting representatives of both government and industry.
There are three ways listed in the legislation by which law enforcement can get industry to aid in breaking encryption.
A technical assistance request or TAR allows for voluntary help by a company; its staff will be given civil immunity from prosecution.
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Terror watchdog wants better encryption laws
Feb 21, 2020 — 3.42pm
Australia's terrorism laws watchdog has given notice that he will push for more specific encryption legislation to ease concerns about security breaches when tech companies are asked to decipher messages.
The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, Dr James Renwick, SC, said the biggest problem in the legislation involved "technical capability notices".
They allow law enforcement agencies to request that private firms build a new function to unlock messages when their existing systems cannot do so – a step Atlassian has described as "a chokehold on the Australian tech industry".
The only qualification is that the work must not create "a systematic vulnerability or weakness", but Dr Renwick said more detail was needed on what that entailed.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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