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This weekly blog is to explore the news around 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 still dated 6 December, 2018! How pathetic is that for transparency? Secrecy unconstrained!
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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Coronavirus contact tracing apps were meant to save us. They won’t
With little evidence to show how effective such apps are and growing privacy concerns, there’s a risk they could do more harm than good
Thursday 30 April 2020
When you’re in the supermarket queue in January 2021 – socially distanced from those around you by two metres – and the phone in your pocket buzzes with a notification from the contact tracing app you installed six months ago, the routine will be familiar. After all, you have been through the process multiple times already.
Someone you crossed paths with last week – the app doesn’t tell you who – has tested positive for coronavirus. It tells you to go home straight away. You must self-isolate until a test has been completed. The test, as with those before it, was automatically ordered from a public health centre as soon as notification was sent to your phone.
This is our new normal. Contact tracing apps aren’t here for the short-term. After the first waves of coronavirus have passed and the public inquiries into government responses have started, the apps will still be watching over us. On their current trajectory they will become essential parts of our daily lives. And it will continue to be this way until a vaccine for coronavirus arrives.
The technology, officials seem to believe, will save us. Contact tracing apps have caught the imagination of politicians looking for ways to ease lockdowns and restart failing economies. They offer hope to world leaders looking for an answer to the tricky question of when the lockdown will end. They promise a return to normality, of sorts.
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Home affairs data breach may have exposed personal details of 700,000 migrants
Exclusive: Privacy experts say the breach in the SkillsSelect platform, which affects data going back to 2014, was ‘very serious’
Sun 3 May 2020 06.00 AEST Last modified on Sun 3 May 2020 06.31 AEST
Privacy experts have blasted the home affairs department for a data breach revealing the personal details of 774,000 migrants and people aspiring to migrate to Australia, including partial names and the outcome of applications.
At a time the federal government is asking Australians to trust the security of data collected by its Covid-Safe contact tracing app, privacy experts are appalled by the breach, which they say is just the latest in a long line of cybersecurity blunders.
The department’s SkillsSelect platform, hosted by the employment department, invites skilled workers and business people to express an interest in migrating to Australia.
Expressions of interest are stored for two years and displayed on a publicly available app, advertised on the home affairs website, allowing them to receive invitations for skilled work visas.
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Coronavirus is making our health sector and hospitals adapt to a virtual future
2 May, 2020
When acclaimed singer-songwriter Jaguar Jonze imagined launching her first EP, the back of an ambulance wasn't quite what she had in mind.
Instead of playing to fans across the United States in a planned tour, the 28-year-old was back in Sydney strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance.
She'd been struck down with COVID-19.
"I ended up releasing [the EP] in the ambulance," she said.
"Paramedics pumped it through the car systems and so we celebrated the EP on the way to the hospital."
Jaguar Jonze, whose real name is Deena Lynch, was mid-tour in the United States when the pandemic took hold, forcing her to return home.
Note: This is a great read and a great use of technology!
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Future proofing Australia’s healthcare: Government launches a nation-wide Innovation Challenge
1 May, 2020: The Australian Digital Health Agency has today launched an Innovation Challenge to support the national COVID-19 effort and future proof Australia’s healthcare system.
It is seeking submissions from Australian digital health, engineering and biomedical industries to champion digital health innovation and help Australia get the most from its national digital health infrastructure.
Australia has a track record of innovation and scientific achievement in healthcare. A priority in Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy is to support a thriving digital health industry delivering world-class innovation. There is no better time for the Australian Government to fund our innovators by holding a competition to solve the most pressing problems facing the health system and our community.
Australian Digital Health Agency Chief Digital Officer, Steven Issa said, “COVID-19 has put health and wellness at the centre of attention for the community and brought intense focus on the ability of Australia’s health system to meet the challenge posed by this global pandemic. It has also highlighted the incredibly important role of digital technologies and the digital health sector to plan and manage health services and protect patients and clinicians by enabling the delivery of care in new ways.”
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How the COVIDSafe app could pierce your privacy — and change Australia’s privacy equation
Technical analysis picks apart app as experts warn of potential for broad-based surveillance.
By David Braue
Contributing Writer, CSO | 29 April 2020 6:00 AEST
Shrugging off early privacy concerns and warnings of “serious privacy implications” from security experts, the Australian federal government’s COVIDSafe app — which was released this week to help streamline the process of COVID-19 coronavirus contact tracing — has been downloaded more than 2 million times within days.
Early reports of technical problems and usage issues — iPhone apps must not, for example, broadcast Bluetooth signals when running in the background — have also spawned concerns the app may present usability issues in the long term. COVIDSafe relies on smartphones’ Bluetooth radios interacting with each other to determine who came in close contact with whom.
How the COVIDSafe app could unmask users’ identities
COVIDSafe is an evolution of Singapore’s TraceTogether, an early app-based approach to contact tracing that rapidly became a global exemplar and has been open-sourced to encourage wide use.
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Australians urged to take up mental health telehealth and put on 'digital sunscreen'
Ten-year project condensed to ten days to help Australians deal with existing mental health concerns and those brought on by the global pandemic.
By Asha Barbaschow | April 29, 2020 -- 06:55 GMT (16:55 AEST) | Topic: Coronavirus: Business and technology in a pandemic
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said one million mental health telehealth consultations have taken place since the federal government announced on March 29 it would be fast-tracking digital alternatives to in-person medical care.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Morrison said the one million figure equates to 50% of all mental health consultations that have occurred in Australia during that period.
"Some AU$35 million specifically in mental health-related consultations have been conducted over that period of time," he said.
The overall telehealth spend is AU$669 million.
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High tech and artificial intelligence are critical to fighting COVID-19
Con Balaskas
Technology features prominently in conversations about COVID-19 – for reasons good and bad. On one hand, it has kept us connected with each other while keeping many businesses operational. On the other, social media has been used to spread misinformation about the pandemic.
From the onset of government ‘stay at home’ orders, video conferencing, cloud computing and other collaboration tools have enabled workforces to continue operating while respecting social distancing. A report from the NBN showed internet traffic has increased 71 per cent on pre-pandemic levels.
However, COVID-19 is a public health crisis, and one of the most important uses of technology right now is helping emergency responders and frontline personnel to work more safely and efficiently.
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Let’s get over the fear of data
Andrew Aho
Sharing contact data during COVID-19 is a necessary departure from recent history.
Australia's deputy chief medical officer, Professor Paul Kelly, was recently asked whether tracing the contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases using a smartphone app was at the government’s disposal – to which he replied “these are difficult decisions to make in terms of people's privacy.”
The ABC's health commentator Norman Swan said Australia should do the same as nations such as Taiwan and Singapore, where tracing technology has been deployed to trace the contacts of confirmed cases. “We need to actually get over our fear of data,” he said.
Since then, the Federal Government has launched its COVID-19 opt-in app “COVIDSafe” to help trace infections, which has been met with demands for privacy guarantees, including from MPs within the Government itself, but is also past three million downloads across the country.
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Coronavirus: tech data shows how we curbed travel to flatten curve
6:41PM May 1, 2020
Data harvested by tech giants Google and Apple has illustrated in stark detail the sharp impact of coronavirus containment measures across the country, with the information showing just how effective measures to limit movement have been.
Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy released new information on Friday showing the dramatic changes in the way people across the nation had changed their behaviour during the outbreak.
The data shows a 60 per cent-plus fall in searches for driving directions through Apple technology in NSW, reflecting what Professor Murphy said was the success of the restrictions introduced in the state.
“This is showing how well people have adhered to our measures that we’ve put in place,” he said. “You can see some little spikes around Easter time but, generally, people are doing the right thing.”
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Why we need the COVIDSafe app
The value of the virus-tracing app is its speed in tracking down anonymous contacts.
May 1, 2020 – 2.35pm
The essential reason for the COVID-19 tracing app is speed. The aim of contact tracing is to find and isolate anyone who has been with an infected person in the previous 14 days. This is the period when a person could have infected others – what we now call community transmission.
It's the speed of infection that has brought good heath systems such as the UK, France and Italy undone.
According to Oxford University research published in Science two weeks ago, contacts need to be traced, ideally within a day and within a maximum two days. If contacts are not isolated within three days, the virus will have infected too many people and be difficult to control.
In NSW, manual contact tracers, using the phone book as well as Facebook and other social media, can usually find the bulk of known "close" contacts – family and friends – in a day.
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Good legislation to make COVIDSafe trustworthy
01/05/2020
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to create novel challenges for Australian governments, both in directly managing the health response and urgently passing laws to support that response.
One of the most challenging areas now confronting lawmakers and political leaders persuading Australian citizens that they should take up and use the COVIDSafe app to facilitate contact tracing and thereby enabling safe opening of our communities.
COVIDSafe app data and associated metadata potentially tells a revealing story of what each citizen using the app does, where and whenever they do it, and with whom.
Nurturing digital trust of the segment of Australian citizens that remain reticent to take up the COVIDSafe app requires unprecedented action by Australian governments, working together.
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The COVIDSafe app was just one contact tracing option. These alternatives guarantee more privacy
April 30, 2020 2.04pm AEST
Since its release on Sunday, experts and members of the public alike have raised privacy concerns with the federal government’s COVIDSafe mobile app.
The contact tracing app aims to stop COVID-19’s spread by “tracing” interactions between users via Bluetooth, and alerting those who may have been in proximity with a confirmed case.
According to a recent poll commissioned by The Guardian, out of 1054 respondents, 57% said they were “concerned about the security of personal information collected” through COVIDSafe.
In its coronavirus response, the government has a golden opportunity to build public trust. There are other ways to build a digital contact tracing system, some of which would arguably raise fewer doubts about data security than the app.
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Rushed introduction of electronic prescriptions will cause unnecessary chaos
30 April, 2020
The planned fast-tracking of electronic prescriptions will cause unnecessary chaos and be a backward step for patient care at exactly the wrong time, according to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.
The imminent fast-tracking of the electronic prescriptions (FTEP) is part of the Government’s COVID-19 National Health Plan.
On behalf of the community pharmacists working in thousands of pharmacies across Australia, the Pharmacy Guild cannot support the introduction of a measure that will impose further significant disruption at a time when community pharmacies are already under intense pressures to support their patients during COVID-19.
The proposed fast-track introduction of the ‘token’ model for electronic prescriptions is the wrong move at a time when the system and pharmacy network is clearly not ready and experiencing unprecedented challenges.
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Telehealth's time has come - the challenge is how to embed it permanently
Dr Bartone is a Melbourne GP and the president of the Australian Medical Association.
30th April 2020
One of the most welcome outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia — albeit unexpected and probably unintended — has been the rapid acceleration of the uptake of e-health initiatives in medical practice.
None have been more significant than telehealth.
The crisis has called for radical and contemporary solutions to meet community health needs, and telehealth looks like it is fitting the bill.
Of course, there have been hitches and glitches, and early communication could have been better, but I think we are now getting significant improvement.
Telehealth has been a routine and integral part of medical practice in many countries for years, but Australia has been slow to embrace the benefits.
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How the Australian government overcomes encryption to snoop into its citizens’ private lives
Telecommunications services and technology have long been a tool of the trade used by malicious actors to plan and carry out criminal activities.
Access to the information held by communications providers is essential for law enforcement to effectively investigate, prevent and disrupt crimes that threaten Australia’s national security.
The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (the TIA Act) provides a legal framework for national security and law enforcement agencies to access this information.
Actions that may be sought under the TIA Act include access to stored communications data that already exist, or the interception of communications in real time.
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Why governments struggle with digital trust
Apr 30, 2020 – 12.01am
Nervous government officials closely watched local chat sites on Monday and Tuesday as the new COVIDSafe app got its first rigorous review from the local tech community.
One of the leaders of this small, but voluble coterie, Atlassian co-founder, Michael Cannon-Brookes, had already stepped up on Sunday evening to declare his support in a post on Hacker News.
Cannon-Brookes called for patience on the release of the code: "Give them a few weeks to clean up code and release it (which is very normal)" and then offered some free advice.
"Turn the HN angry mob mode off – it’s not helpful. We’re all in this together. Commend the government on some smart privacy and security choices. They won’t get it all right – and we as a tech community can help them. Find a bug & help get them closed."
On Twitter, never-appers quickly declared Cannon-Brookes a government spokesperson. But 48 hours later – after blocks were removed on most of the app code – half a dozen tear down sites, cryptologists, cyber analysts and developers had broadly given the app a solid pass.
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App is no silver bullet for virus, yet a honey pot for the malign
COVIDSafe is not just about health and disease. It is about how government views citizens, privacy and transparency.
Apr 29, 2020 – 3.16pm
Managing a pandemic’s no walk in the park. There’s little clear data initially, and big decisions to be made. Governing is driven by the spur of urgency, because lives are at stake. The bias towards action is heightened, and with it the prospect for missteps and expediency.
That’s the context for the launch of the government’s COVIDSafe app. The launch looks rushed, most likely due to the government’s need to stay ahead of the growing pressure to break out from lockdowns. Sydney, in particular, looks restless: if the lockdown starts to fail at one point, pressure will surely build elsewhere.
But even if that pressure were better contained, the government would still need a mechanism to translate the success of its social distancing policy into a more durable revival of the Australian lifestyle. It needs to allow people to get back to their businesses, incomes, hobbies and families while retaining some means of managing contact.
The government is not maliciously ignoring privacy or security: it has taken steps to address those concerns. True, it could do more – and, it is to be hoped, it will. But it is how it acts that matters – both in exploiting the app in the short term to counter COVID-19 and deploying the app over the long term, as there will be no going back to a pre-COVID environment.
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What you need to know about the COVIDSafe app
Dr Elkhodr (PhD) is a lecturer in information and communication technologies at CQUniversity.
29th April 2020
About 1.13 million people had downloaded the Federal Government’s COVIDSafe app by 6am on Monday, just 12 hours after its release on Sunday night, said Minister for Health Greg Hunt.
The government is hoping at least 40% of the population will make use of the app, designed to help reduce the spread of coronavirus.
Previously dubbed TraceTogether — in line with a similar app rolled out in Singapore — the coronavirus contact tracing app has been an ongoing cause of contention among the public.
Many people have voiced concerns of an erosion of privacy, and potential misuse of citizen data by the Government.
But how does COVIDSafe work? And to what extent has the app addressed our privacy concerns?
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AI Guides | Facial Recognition
Although facial recognition technology has been around in various forms for decades – the last few years have been marked by the rapid evolution of the technology and increased adoption rates around the world.
Today, facial recognition technology not only authorises your entry into some countries but unlocks your phone, helps locate criminals and, although not strictly recognition, if you are looking for work, may be used to analyse your job interview.
However – as the main stream adoption of facial recognition technology by both government and private entities grows – questions are being increasingly raised around the world (including in prominent newspaper articles) as to whether facial recognition technology should be used and, if so, in what situations.
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Author's Opinion
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of iTWire.
Wednesday, 29 April 2020 01:50
Why do we not trust the COVID-19 app?
The federal government has a long history of 'bait and switch,' that's why.
It is unfortunate that, when it is most necessary for the public to trust the government in the matter of an information system, their heritage leaves everyone hanging.
For some recent history, we have the MyHealthRecord debacle where it became very clear that despite initial promises of total security and privacy, our health data wasn't as safe as we would prefer it to be. This writer opted the entire family out.
We also have the current metadata legislation that 'guarantees' that the content of our communications will not be passed to various government investigators, but will happily provide them the metadata. So, (for a hypothetical example) if someone calls the venereal disease clinic, then a couple of days later, their device location data shows them attending the clinic. And then a few days after that a call from the clinic and then immediately after that the person calls their 'significant other,' there is absolutely no need to know the content of the calls!
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Tuesday, 28 April 2020 11:37
Pearcey Foundation endorses COVID app
The Pearcey Foundation has released a discussion paper in response to the launch of the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe app.
The paper, ‘The COVIDSafe App: A Question of Trust’, endorses the app, with the proviso that more needs to be done to ensure the public is fully informed and that all safeguards remain in place.
The Pearcey Foundation was founded in 1998 to celebrate Australia’s ICT heritage. It is named after Australian computing pioneer Trevor Pearcey, who designed and built the world’s fourth computer, CSIRAC, in 1947.
The paper is based on the collective views of a group of senior Australian ICT specialists, all of whom are of the belief that the COVIDSafe app will be effective if widely implemented, that the government is doing enough to ensure its integrity, and that it is an important new weapon in the fight against the spread of the virus.
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COVIDSafe privacy report calls on state health bodies to comply with Privacy Act
Report drops on the weekend as over 1.13 million Australians install the app.
By Chris Duckett | April 27, 2020 -- 02:52 GMT (12:52 AEST) | Topic: Coronavirus: Business and technology in a pandemic
As the Australian government pushed out its COVIDSafe tracing app on Sunday, the Department of Health also released a privacy assessment [PDF] of the app.
The report was prepared by law firm Maddocks and contains 19 recommendations, along with others that were made during the development of the app. Its authors admit the document was prepared within "an extremely compressed timeframe," and says the government has "considered the range of privacy risks associated with the app and has already taken steps to mitigate some of these risks".
Through the use of Bluetooth, the app records "digital handshakes" for each minute that two phones using the app are in contact. When a user tests positive for coronavirus, they are asked to upload the handshakes to a centralised National COVIDSafe Data Store, which are then accessed by contract tracers to notify people who are determined to be at risk.
The handshakes contain: The unique IDs of each user in contact -- said to be an "encrypted version of the user's mobile phone number"; Bluetooth signal strength used to determine distance; and a timestamp. Handshakes are stored on mobile devices and deleted 21 days after being created.
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Former top public servant: I won't download the coronavirus app
April 27, 2020 — 5.05pm
Two million Australians will have the coronavirus tracing app on their phones tonight but a top former digital agency public servant won't download it because of the government's track record with people's data.
Professor Lesley Seebeck, the former Digital Transformation Agency chief investment and advisory officer who is now the head of the Australian National University Cyber Institute, said the government had a history of grabbing as much data as it could under technology and security laws.
As millions of people download the COVIDSafe tracing app, chief medical officer Brendan Murphy has tried to calm the security concerns of some Australians over the data being stored and who has access to it.
"I am concerned because once these things are taken you don't get them back," Professor Seebeck said. "The government does not have a record of rolling any of these things back."
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HIPS v7.3 Released
The Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) has released a new minor release of its HIPS middleware product:
· HIPS v7.3
Key improvements
- Goals of Care document type introduced for upload and display
- Advance Care Planning document type now also supported for upload
- User interface enhancements:
- Improved Advance Care Information indicator on Patient Summary screen, covering:
- Goals of Care documents
- Advance Care Planning documents
- Advance Care Directive Custodian Record documents
- New Advance Care Information screen focussed on:
- Goals of Care documents
- Advance Care Planning documents
- Advance Care Directive Custodian Record documents
- Enhancements for HL7 ADT and ORU messages:
- Enhanced validation of HL7 message fields
- Improved processing of edge cases
- Alignment to HL7 standard for representation and interpretation of null values
Who will this affect?
- Public and private hospital organisations
- Diagnostic service provider organisations
- System integrators
- Software vendors
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Author's Opinion
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The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of iTWire.
Have your say and comment below.
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Monday, 27 April 2020 10:17
Govt shows it has a tin ear when it comes to privacy concerns
If Australians had any doubts that the government has a tin ear when it comes to privacy concerns, those would have disappeared after its choice of Amazon Web Services as the company which will store data collected by the COVID-19 contact-tracing app that was announced on Sunday.
There are three Australian companies — Vault, Sliced Tech and Macquarie Government — as well equipped as AWS to store top-secret government data. Why were none of them considered? After all, the data is going to be stored in Australia – or so the government avers.
Last time I looked, AWS had as many as five lobbyists to push its cause in Canberra. Could that have anything to do with this decision? It's interesting to note that the prime minister has been given the Twitter handle #ScottyFromMarketing by many an Australian.
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COVIDSafe: things to know when you hit ‘download’
Installing the COVIDSafe app is simple, but there are important things to remember.
The app looks for other phones that are within 1.5m of you for 15 minutes. It collects the other phone’s encrypted ID, the date and time, and uses its Bluetooth signal strength to estimate distance between the phones.
If you never test positive, these records are deleted from your phone when they are 21 days old. Nothing is uploaded to the cloud. If you are positive, the government hopes you will agree to upload your data so officials can trace people you may have infected and encourage them to be tested.
To install the app, you go to the app store for either Apple (iOS) or Android, search for COVIDSafe, download and run it.
The first screen offers a brief explanation of how the app works. “The data collected is encrypted and will only be stored on your phone and the other COVIDSafe users’ phones,” it says.
A second screen includes a link to the privacy policy, and stresses voluntary participation. It says your phone data will be deleted if you uninstall the app.
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Don't be afraid of the app, it's our ticket out of here
By Katie Allen
April 26, 2020 — 11.15pm
Seventy years ago countries shut up shops, closed schools and public transport as they scrambled to fight the poliovirus pandemic. This was a virus for which there was no treatment or cure, with social distancing the only effective mitigation.
Parents lived in fear that their children would be maimed and left with twisted and contorted limbs requiring lifelong and tortuous leg irons to be able to walk. Thousands of Australians were confined to “iron lungs” to breathe – some for the rest of their lives. Prior to the discovery of a vaccine, millions around the world have died from polio. As a medical student, I met patients who had been confined to iron lungs for 40 years – unable to sit, stand, walk, undertake any normal activities of daily life or even breathe on their own. It gave me a profound respect for the advances that medical research has delivered in vaccines and population epidemiology.
As medical researchers race to discover a vaccine for COVID-19, the world is confronted with the same questions of how best to contain and suppress the pandemic while enabling us to return as much as possible to normal economic and social life.
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Signing contracts electronically just got easier in NSW
The NSW Parliament has passed regulations to allow witnessing and attestation of documents to take place by audio visual link. These changes provide welcome benefits to businesses in circumstances where signatories are working remotely and are unable to sign documents in wet-ink. However, some uncertainties surrounding electronic execution still remain.
When do the regulations start to operate?
The Electronic Transactions Amendment (COVID-19 Witnessing of Documents) Regulation 2020 (NSW) commences on 22 April 2020. The regulations were made under s17 of the Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (NSW), which was inserted by the COVID-19 Legislation Amendment (Emergency Measures) Act 2020 (NSW). The regulations will expire on 26 September 2020, unless this date is changed by further regulation or resolution of Parliament.
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The coronavirus tracing app gets a privacy tick, but it will test Australians' trust
By Ben Grubb
April 26, 2020 — 5.58pm
The government says it has done enough to protect Australians' privacy when it comes to its coronavirus tracing app - and it looks like it might have got the balance right.
Those who would typically be against such an app are saying just that.
"This is the first time our government has deployed a digital service with user privacy at its core, that is protected by strong legislation for one specific use, and requiring consent at two points," says Dr Belinda Barnet, a senior lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology with research interests in data privacy.
But the app still faces significant hurdles on two fronts: In Australians' ability to trust the government and in ensuring it works effectively and does not provide false hope to millions.
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'Privacy by design' approach for COVIDSafe app
Apr 26, 2020 – 6.24pm
The COVIDSafe app has been stripped back to a single purpose – to enable digital tracing of possible infection transmission – and is protected by a raft of legislative safeguards to prohibit access for law enforcement or judicial purposes.
The “privacy by design” approach includes taking steps to minimise the collection of personal information and limiting who will be able to access app information.
Launching the app Health Minister Greg Hunt said Attorney General Christian Porter described it as "probably the safest data that has been provided by any group at any time in Australian history".
"Not even a court order can penetrate the law, not even a court order, or the investigation of an alleged crime would be allowed to use [the data]," Mr Hunt said.
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Coronavirus app: will Australians trust a government with a history of tech fails and data breaches?
The contact tracing app could work well to slow the spread of Covid-19, but will need to be accepted by a sceptical public
Sun 26 Apr 2020 06.00 AEST Last modified on Sun 26 Apr 2020 13.30 AEST
The federal government is attempting to convince Australians it can be trusted to handle personal data collected by the coronavirus contact tracing app. But it’s an uphill battle due to a long history of secrecy and failures to live up to promises on security and privacy of Australians’ data.
Governments around the world are dealing with the same problem: everyone wants to be able to resume some level of normal life, but authorities will need to be able to quickly find and contain people who might have the virus and not yet know it.
Currently they do this by relying on human memory of who a person who tests positive has been around and where they have been – and cases can be easily missed.
But if everyone is running an app that records a list of everyone they’ve been in close contact with, the process would be much more simple, and faster.
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Why the government is moving to tame the digital duopoly
Google and Facebook have fabulously profitable business models, but it is eroding the supply of journalism in Australia. It is time they paid their way.
Apr 26, 2020 – 12.32pm
In the past decade, Australia has lost more than 100 local and regional newspapers.
Just in the past few weeks, with COVID-19 driving a sharp fall in advertising revenues, publishers have announced further closures or suspensions.
Australian media businesses – such as News Corp, Nine Entertainment Co, Seven West Media, Australian Community Media, Foxtel and many regional broadcasters – are under pressure. Their profits and revenues are declining; if they are listed, their share prices are way down.
At the same time, the giant global digital platforms, particularly Google and Facebook, are thriving in the Australian market as they secure more eyeballs and advertising revenue from Australian media businesses.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
6 comments:
Future proofing Australia’s healthcare: Government launches a nation-wide Innovation Challenge
Why does this ADHA event feel like a simple concept that has been high-jacked? I can imagine some sort of Dilbert scenario – (originator) let’s plan our annual “…” event, keep it simple, maybe focus on a key theme relevant to the current releases or challenges…. In flies the comms team disguised as a program manager and project manager led by one of two executives armed with motivational posters and cliches. Think “outside the box team”, what are the real “pain points” “synergies” “the kind of client-focused, solution-driven content that stakeholders want”. We need a focus group, gotta tactically evaluate this strategic initiative from 40,000 feet before proving out whether it’s going to up-cycle productivity or negatively impact the cross-functional team members that are coordinating the multi-pronged approach to synergising the year-over-year digital strategy.
(Originator) But but we though a bit of get together online to discuss current service delivery needs and maybe hack a few prototypes for eprescriptions and telemedicine …. (Thoughtless leadership) Yes yes thank you, close the door on your way out.
If you look at the timelines and activities it has been planned by halfwits with no concept of planning let alone ideas development.
May 06, 2020 8:31 AM. How close you are. Almost as if you had the role of fly-on-the-wall.
8:31 AM. “It’s being planned by halfwits with no concept ...” They are competing against: Apple to host virtual Worldwide Developers Conference beginning 22 June. I know where I will be putting my efforts. ADHA is a joke
"Future proofing Australia’s healthcare: Government launches a nation-wide Innovation Challenge"
They give small businesses a week to respond to a government tender. They have no idea. They just don't know how to operate as a government agency. You know like releasing board meeting papers
“They give small businesses a week to respond to a government tender. They have no idea” - But we are agile don’t you know? We paid EY several millions to make us so, and we have product managers and scrum masters somewhere.
I tend to agree with 8:31 AM in as far as this seems like some hijacked. I am not clear how it maps to their corporate plan - https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/about-the-agency/corporate-plan/ADHA_Corporate_Plan_2019-2020.pdf
They should probably be focused on the test beds and cure messaging, oh and this mythical interoperability and standards community roadmap that has been a joke since that disaster of a woman destroyed in a few years back.
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