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 were dated 6 December, 2018 and we have seen none since!
It is worth pointing out that it was only in last little while ( beginning end July 2020 ) the ADHA took down the notification regarding the most recent minutes notification. Embarrassed I guess – as they should be!
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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Australian Digital Health Agency - Improved quality of life within the aged care setting: the case for My Health Record
Date: 09-09-2020 18:30:00 to 19:30
When September 9th 2020 6.30pm-7.30pm
Where Online Webinar
ADHA Propaganda
Realise the benefits of My Health Record for residents within your facility. Understand your advantage in having accurate and relevant clinical information, to assist in improving quality of life, care coordination and ultimately reduce potential medication misadventures.
Please join the Australian Digital Health Agency and Western Australia Primary Health Alliance for an interactive session and a panel discussion focusing on how digital health tools, such as My Health Record, can support person-centred care, in-line with their wishes and goals of care. We are pleased to have speakers with a range of expertise join us, who will be able to share their experience and insights on this topic.
All healthcare providers and care workers working across primary care and in aged care facilities are welcome to attend this session.
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Australia vs Google and Facebook: we’re not alone
Canberra’s battle with Google and Facebook is mirrored by the tech giants dealings with regulators and governments around the world.
On Tuesday Facebook threatened to stop using Australian and international news on its platforms in Australia if world-first regulation passes to set up a bargaining code that could mean tech giants paying media companies for news.
Facebook’s threats followed similar claims from Google last month, with the reactions and remedies virtually the same.
They also mirror tactics by Google in reaction to lawsuits in Arizona and elsewhere over the way it uses location data to boost its digital advertising business.
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By Zoe Samios and Anthony Galloway
September 4, 2020 — 11.00pm
The Trump administration has raised concerns with Australia's competition regulator about proposed legislation that would force powerful US tech companies Google and Facebook to pay publishers for news.
Government and industry sources said the US Trade Representative made a submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, taking issue with elements of a proposed code that would require Google and Facebook to pay publishers for use of news content and force them to provide advance notice of changes to their algorithms.
Facebook and Google have both strongly opposed the introduction of the legislation, known as the news media bargaining code, but the involvement of the US government is a sign of the broader implications the new laws could have on global trade relationships.
Google's global boss Sundar Pichai had a video conference meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison to discuss his concerns with the draft code on Thursday. Sources said the meeting was cordial and constructive.
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https://www.afr.com/technology/australia-the-new-ground-zero-in-tech-war-20200901-p55rf5
Australia the new ground zero in tech war
Australia is warming to its role as an unlikely world leader in attempting to keep a check on the runaway market power of Google and Facebook. But there may be a high price to pay.
Paul Smith Technology editor
Sep 4, 2020 – 1.08pm
It was at the end of July when Kaare Struve realised that it is impossible to negotiate with a monolithic global technology platform from a small country.
The media director at Danish music rights body Koda had been bargaining with Google's ubiquitous YouTube video sharing platform about the amount of money local artists should be paid for their work being played on the site, when the tech giant flexed its muscles.
Google and Koda were part of a broader negotiation to replace individual country agreements in Denmark, Finland and Norway with a Nordic agreement, but when it came to extending an existing deal for Denmark, Google said it would only accept a price almost 70 per cent lower than before.
When Koda rejected its offer and expected to haggle, Google simply pressed the nuclear button and banned Danish music from being used on YouTube at all.
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Internet giants to face hefty fines under Austrian hate speech law
By Staff Writer on Sep 4, 2020 12:29PM
Non-compliance to cost up to $16.3 million.
Austria plans to oblige large internet platforms like Facebook and Google to delete illegal content within days and impose fines of up to 10 million euros (A$16.3 million) in case of non-compliance, the government said on Thursday.
Austria's online hate speech law, now being drawn up, will target platforms with more than 100,000 users and annual revenues of more than 500,000 euros, Justice Minister Alma Zadic said. It will give victims of online insults and abuse the opportunity to fight back quickly at a low cost, she said.
"The internet is not a lawless space. Our rule of law also applies to the internet," the minister told a news conference.
A new fast-track procedure, free of charge for the first three years, would enable victims to obtain a cease and desist order within days.
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Digital Health Or Digital Snakeoil: How to evaluate solutions
Up until recently, there were no clear criteria to evaluate a good digital health vendor from a bad one (or an unscrupulous one). In 2020, that has changed.
Co-authored by Grace Lethlean, Co-Founder of ANDHealth, and Hugo Rourke, Co-Founder of Perx Health.
Unfortunately, it’s too late for Walgreens.
In 2016, Walgreen’s rolled out Theranos blood testing to 40 stores only to discover that the tests were inaccurate and unproven. Similarly, it’s too late for the 8,000 consumers who bought themselves the Scanadu Scout. The hype of a sleek “Tricoder” that would measure heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature, was no match for the regulatory hurdles of the FDA.
These scandals were unravelling about the same time we founded our two companies, ANDHealth and Perx Health. At that time, our fellow innovators, doctorpreneurs and enterprise customers were all figuring-out on-the-fly what makes a digital health company good enough, or, better, truly great. This is no easy task as the commercialisation of digital health products is inherently complex: there are requirements across clinical research, real-world R.O.I, data privacy & security, regulation, plus considerations for implementation in complex workflows with multiple stakeholders.
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'Disturbing and harmful': eSafety commissioner calls on Facebook to stop 'volumetric' trolling
By Tim Biggs and Fergus Hunter
September 4, 2020 — 5.00am
Australia's eSafety commissioner has told Facebook and other social media giants they must act against co-ordinated harassment campaigns, as COVID-19 conspiracy groups use the tactic in attempts to overwhelm targets online.
So-called volumetric attacks, also known as brigading, mobbing or pile-ons, involve targeting specific people, pages or posts with a huge amount of online comments. Such attacks have been used by racist, misogynist and anti-semitic groups in the past, but in recent times have also become a tool for conspiracy theorists and groups rejecting climate action and COVID-19 public safety measures.
After Jim Sensenbrenner asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about Twitter restricting Donald Trump Jr's account when he tweeted about hydroxychloroquine, Zuckerberg said 'we do not want to become the arbiters of truth.'
Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, said the rising prevalence of volumetric cyber abuse had prompted her to ask social media platforms for "urgent discussions" about how they planned to contain them.
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03 Sep 2020 11:05 AM AEST
Telehealth here to stay, but safeguards and improvement needed
The future of telehealth is in the spotlight in the latest issue of the Australian Journal of Rural Health.
A piece by National Rural Health Alliance CEO Dr Gabrielle O’Kane highlights how the rapid rollout of telehealth during COVID-19 has helped rural, regional and remote health care workers and consumers, but warns that if telehealth is here to stay, connectivity and quality need to be improved and local providers need to be protected.
“There’s no doubt that telehealth has been a game-changer during the pandemic,” said Dr O’Kane.
“Prior to COVID-19, Australian governments had implemented digital health reforms in a fractured way and the pandemic was the catalyst to change that. Change had to happen and it had to happen quickly.”
“Once the pandemic has passed and the country opens back up again, we need to ensure that telehealth remains on the table – not just to make it more convenient and accessible for people in rural areas where there is a shortage of health care workers and long travel times for treatment, but to open the door to flexible and innovative models of care.”
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https://apo.org.au/node/307988
The spectrum of encryption: safety and security considerations
31 Aug 2020
Lindsey Sheppard, Brian Katz, Kathleen Hicks, Joseph Federici
Publisher Center for Strategic and International Studies
Digital communications Encryption Cyber security Online privacy
Resources The spectrum of encryption: safety and security considerations
Description
Encryption is a critical tool to protect sensitive information, prevent cybercrime and digital fraud, and authenticate digital transactions. However, the global encryption policy landscape is fracturing, with different countries pursuing different approaches to encryption through both legal and technical means. With authoritarianism on the rise around the world, encryption policy debates are about more than securing data. How different countries address the question of access to encryption will shape how global companies build their products, which will have significant implications for the tools and choices available to a wide range of users around the world.
For vulnerable groups, both recoverable and unrecoverable encryption can be an essential means to protect communications and activities from repressive regimes, criminals, hate groups, and other bad actors. But malicious actors can also utilise encryption to hide their activities from law enforcement and security agencies. While average, everyday users have interests and needs in using encryption, the CSIS research team focused on a subset of user communities that, taken together, illuminate the trade-offs inherent in encryption policy choices.
This study explores these issues through the lens of key encryption user groups (independent voices; at-risk groups; businesses and organisations; foreign policy; and terrorists, extremists, and hate groups), their governments, and U.S. values and interests. Its findings illuminate the central trade-offs policymakers face and demonstrate that decisions surrounding when, where, how, and by whom encryption is used should be more nuanced than an all-or-nothing approach.
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Wednesday, 02 September 2020 09:59
Australians ‘positive’ about role of AI but doubts remain on privacy, threats to jobs
Australians are relatively positive about the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in society, but concerns remain around privacy and threats to jobs , according to a new national survey by Monash University, which also reveals that understandings of AI are varied – from robots “taking over the world” to computers being programmed to perform tasks in a positive fashion.
Commissioned and published by the Monash Data Futures Institute, the survey reveals that while nearly 90% of Australians were aware of the term AI, just one-quarter of respondents said they knew ‘a fair bit’ or ‘a lot’ about AI - and these are most likely to be people with computer science or programming expertise, and/or from households where a language other than English is spoken.
Despite this, around two-thirds of respondents said they ‘somewhat supported’ or ‘strongly supported’ the development of AI, compared to only 12% who said they were opposed to any AI advancements in Australia.
The report is based on an analysis of data generated by a nationally-representative survey of more than 2000 Australian adults, and Monash notes that the findings come at a time when government analysts warn Australia is “behind the international curve when it comes to building an AI industry that will require about 161,000 specialised workers by 2030”.
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Take on Google and Facebook, says journalism professor Henningham
A leading Australian journalism professor says the media should throw down the gauntlet to big tech over its refusal to pay for mainstream news by building alternative news platforms.
Professor John Henningham, the inaugural professor of journalism at University of Queensland and later founder of Jschool, says media organisations could end their dependency on eyeballs on social media by building an aggregated, searchable news platform. It would then encourage the public to find its news there.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACC) has published a draft code that requires Facebook and Google pay media for news content and negotiate other issues, but both have recoiled against the move.
Last month Google promoted an open letter via its search and YouTube, claiming the move would dramatically worsen Google search. It also extensively lobbied politicians against the ACCC move. That lobbying seems to have had little impact with both sides of federal parliament and crossbenchers behind the ACCC’s moves.
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Facebook's nuclear option betrays its talk of open negotiations
Facebook has shown it is willing to abandon its Australian users to the fake news merchants, in an increasingly desperate bid to avoid paying publishers on other people's terms.
Paul Smith Technology editor
Sep 1, 2020 – 1.24pm
It had seemed odd Facebook had remained quiet for so long in the debate about the ACCC draft code to govern payment negotiations with creators of the news content that floods its platforms.
It is now obvious that it was letting Google punch itself out first before submissions were due, before tagging in itself to take on the same fight.
In threatening to ban all Australian users from sharing any news content on either Facebook or Instagram, the social media behemoth is showing off its big red button and threatening to go nuclear.
There is much to debate about the mechanism for coming to a fair value exchange between tech platforms and news content creators, and the ACCC's proposed code was certainly welcomed more strongly on the traditional media side.
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https://bluenotes.anz.com/posts/2020/08/minter-ellison-artificial-intelligence-consumers-healthcare
21 Aug 2020
AI governance needs real people in mind
Shane Evans
Partner & Health Industry Lead, MinterEllison
Healthcare is a people business; delivered by caring health professionals to their patients. It is often delivered during periods of health compromise, sickness or medical uncertainty. In this time of COVID-19, it is arguably the most important and respected service of any sector.
On the surface, artificial intelligence (AI) may seem counterintuitive as a form of healthcare – given It is also known as machine intelligence. As that name suggests, AI has software, algorithms and machine learning at its heart. Yet, it is fast becoming one of the most exciting and effective developments in healthcare services and delivery.
"A comprehensive governance framework for any AI strategy in a healthcare setting needs to start from the position that healthcare is centred on the consumer.”
AI has the ability to help deliver some health services more quickly, efficiently, at lower cost and with greater accuracy. But, like any new technology or therapeutic intervention that is introduced in a healthcare setting, AI must be properly regulated.
Those who are accountable for managing risk and regulatory compliance within organisations should have assurance the implementation and use of any AI tool will be safe and cost effective, produce better outcomes, with an improved experience, for all stakeholders.
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https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/the-success-of-telehealth,14265
The success of telehealth
By Paul Budde | 2 September 2020, 8:00am | 0 comments
COVID-19 has proved a catalyst in transforming telehealth services, writes Paul Budde.
THERE ARE many health care needs that can only be successfully addressed in face-to-face visits with health practitioners. It is necessary to see a medical practitioner when we need to discuss private health issues in detail, to canvass different health or treatment options and to assess our health.
Having said this, there are many other situations that only require a telephone call. Results of blood test without complications, simple over the phone advice, follow up checkups and other minor issues can be handled by telehealth in a much more efficient and cost-effective way. This could account for as much as 20-30% of all health care consultations, imagine what such a transformation can do for the health care system.
At an interesting Telehealth Zoom Conference organised by Telsoc, Professor Anthony Smith revealed some very interesting health-related statistics. Here are some to illustrate what happened when telehealth was made available to all Australians.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b5a48b69-762e-4df1-81a7-7e051b44ee60
Copyright Act to move further into the digital age
The Federal Government has proposed significant reforms to the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), following two years of extensive stakeholder consultation. The reforms will finalise the Government’s response to copyright recommendations in the Productivity Commission’s 2016 Intellectual Property Arrangements Report (2016 Report).
The Hon Paul Fletcher MP, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts announced the proposed reforms on 13 August 2020. The Minister noted that the need for change has been further highlighted during COVID-19, with schools, universities, cultural institutions and governments moving more services online.
The aim is to provide a copyright framework that is fit for the digital age and the proposed copyright access reforms will include five main measures.
Limited liability scheme for use of orphan work
Under the current Copyright Act there is no special treatment for so-called ‘orphan works’, being works where the copyright owner cannot be identified. Orphan works are increasingly problematic, especially for libraries and archives – the common repositories of orphan works – as they seek to digitalise, and make available online, their collections.
The 2016 Report recommended that liability for the use of orphan works be limited in circumstances where a user has undertaken a diligent search to locate the relevant rights' holder.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=aa8982ef-392e-4142-a748-ff1669ffe6f7
Supporting telehealth through regulation: a summary of changes
Amongst clinicians, the concept of telehealth is broad and encompasses any transfer of information electronically - synchronously (eg. by video or phone consult), or asynchronously (eg. by email or text message). The RACGP has defined telehealth as ‘a method of delivering healthcare that involves the use of information and communications technology (ICT) to transmit audio, images and/or data between a patient and a healthcare provider.’
When considering relevant regulations or guidelines, it must first be understood what form of ‘telehealth’ they apply to, or whether they apply broadly. For example, under the Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS), the term ‘telehealth’ refers to video consults only, not consults by phone.
Recent regulatory changes facilitate the use of both video and phone consults (remote consults). Some of these changes are temporary, in response to the pandemic – others are permanent and pre-dated it.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a0b1d066-84b0-4f21-b4ea-947517930f36
HealthEngine pays the penalty for misleading testimonials and privacy breaches
HealthEngine operates Australia’s largest online health marketplace, listing over 70,000 health practices and practitioners across Australia. Through its website and mobile phone app platforms, HealthEngine provides access to its online directory and an online booking system that enables Patients to book consultations with Health Practices.
HealthEngine is an Australian digital health success story. According to the Federal Court, it derived revenue of $17 million in the 2018 Financial Year (and made a net loss of over $13 million).
It derives revenue from ‘new’ patients making online bookings with Participating Health Practices,referral fees from health insurance brokers and law firms, and from advertising.
According to its press release of 5 August 2020, more than 7 million people across Australian have made more than 30 million bookings on the HealthEngine platforms since 2007.
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Introduction to My Health Record (free webinar)
How much does it cost?
Free
Email: library@cttg.sa.gov.au
Phone: 8397
7333
When is it?
Thursday 24 September 2020 at 2:30PM - 3:30PM
Where is it?
Tea Tree Gully Library (online webinar)
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Facebook threat to block news sharing over ACCC rules
Facebook has broken its silence on the proposed news media bargaining code, with the tech giant declaring it will be forced to block all news in Australia if the legislation goes ahead.
In a blog post published on Tuesday, Facebook’s Australia and New Zealand managing director Will Easton accused the ACCC of “misunderstanding the dynamic of the internet” and said Facebook would be left with no choice but to withdraw from news in Australia entirely, if it was forced to pay for publishers fairly for news.
“Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram,” Mr Easton said.
“This is not our first choice – it is our last. But it is the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic and will hurt, not help, the long-term vibrancy of Australia’s news and media sector.”
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'Not our first choice': Facebook threatens to block news in Australia
By Zoe Samios
September 1, 2020 — 10.16am
Social media behemoth Facebook is threatening to ban news from being shared on its main app and Instagram in Australia in a major attack on a new regulatory code that would force it and Google to pay publishers for content.
Facebook Australia managing director Will Easton said the proposed legislation, which was announced by the competition regulator in July, misunderstands "the dynamic of the internet" and will damage news organisations.
"Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram. This is not our first choice – it is our last," Mr Easton said.
"We already invest millions of dollars in Australian news businesses and, during discussions over this legislation, we offered to invest millions more. We had also hoped to bring Facebook News to Australia, a feature on our platform exclusively for news, where we pay publishers for their content.
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Data sharing by popular health apps found to be 'routine', prompting calls for more transparency
By health reporter Olivia Willis and technology reporter Ariel Bogle
Posted Thursday 21 March 2019 at 2:49pm.
It is the type of information a doctor might need: your age, sex, medical conditions, current symptoms, and a list of any drugs you take.
Key points:
- Health apps are routinely sharing user data, new research shows
- Amazon and Google among third parties receiving highest volume of data
- Experts are calling for greater regulation and transparency
It is also the type of sensitive health data being handed over to app developers, their parent companies, and potentially dozens of third-party entities — posing an "unprecedented risk" to consumer privacy.
That is according to a new study, published on Thursday in the British Medical Journal, which found the sharing of user data from health-related mobile apps on the Android platform was routine and yet far from transparent.
(A reminder – no evidence of much improvement)
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Privacy Protection: HealthEngine hit with $2.9 Million Fine for Misuse of Customer Data
On 20 August 2020, the Federal Court ordered that online health marketplace HealthEngine pay $2.9 million for breach of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).1 HealthEngine admitted liability for engaging in misleading conduct under the ACL by sharing personal information of customers with private health insurance brokers without consent. HealthEngine also admitted to removing or manipulating customer reviews. These proceedings demonstrate the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) increasing role in protecting digital privacy and data sharing in Australia.
Background
HealthEngine hosts an online directory which facilitates patient bookings with over 70,000 health practices and practitioners in Australia. Part of HealthEngine’s business involves the publishing of reviews and ratings to enable these patients to identify health practices or practitioners which are suitable to their needs.
In August 2019, the ACCC commenced Federal Court proceedings against HealthEngine for misuse of patient data and for manipulating reviews.2 The ACCC claimed that, from 31 March 2015 to 1 March 2018, HealthEngine did not publish negative patient feedback, edited patient feedback before it was published as a review and misrepresented the reasons why it did not publish a rating for some health practices. Additionally, the ACCC claimed that, during the period 30 April 2014 to 30 June 2018, HealthEngine provided personal information supplied to it by patients to third party private health insurance brokers, in return for a fee, without obtaining consent from patients and without adequately disclosing that this would occur. This information allegedly included names, dates of birth, email address and phone numbers of over 135,000 patients.
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https://www.racgp.org.au/running-a-practice/technology/clinical-technology/electronic-prescribing
Electronic prescribing
What is electronic prescribing?
Electronic prescribing allows for the prescribing and dispensing of medicines without the need for a paper prescription, which can improve efficiency and medicines safety.
Electronic prescribing is an initiative as part of the National Health Plan. It was originally due to be rolled out next year, but its delivery has been progressed to support telehealth consultations and help protect healthcare providers and patients from infectious disease, in this case COVID-19, by removing the need to present to your GP in person to get a prescription.
How does it work?
Instead of a paper prescription, the patient can choose to receive their prescription via an app, SMS or email in the form of a link to a unique QR code or ‘token’.
The token is scanned by the pharmacy to unlock the electronic form of the prescription from an encrypted and secure electronic prescription delivery service. If the patient has a repeat for a prescription, they will receive a new token from the pharmacy that replaces the original token.
By the end of the year, pharmacy will also be able to access and dispense from an ‘active script list’, which provides a list of all the patient’s current prescriptions, including repeats.
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https://soundcloud.com/adhapodcast/electronic-prescriptions-an-introduction
Australian Digital Health Agency Podcast
Electronic Prescriptions - An introduction
Hear from professionals who are already using electronic prescriptions, discover the benefits and find out how to get ready for implementation.
Speakers: Dr Andrew Rochford (Facilitator), Andrew Matthews (Agency Program Director Medicines Safety), Dr Peter Del Fante (Clinical Reference Lead, General Practitioner, Public Health Physician), Dr Amanda Seeto (Pharmacy owner, Pharmacy Guild of Australia Queensland Branch Committee member) and Argryo Pantelios (Practice Manager, Registered Nurse).
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AI tells Domino's when you will want a pizza with uncanny accuracy
John Davidson Columnist
Aug 31, 2020 – 11.57am
It ought to have been a typical, relatively quiet Monday evening in the corporate store of Domino's in Melbourne, Victoria.
An artificial intelligence model that the pizza chain was testing, an AI model designed to predict pizza consumption three weeks into the future, had noticed an anomaly in the data and had warned the store's manager to roster on more delivery staff than would be usual for a Monday. But the manager had ignored the warning, preferring his years of experience of seeing it quiet on a Monday evening, to that of the machine.
The AI-based rostering system, which the Brisbane-based AI start-up Max Kelsen had custom-built for Domino's, turned out to be right. That Monday turned out to be unusually busy and the Melbourne store ended up being understaffed.
The machine learning system, known as "Cognitive Rostering", takes hundreds of millions of sales figures collected over many years at Domino's stores around Australia and combines it with inputs from such things as the TV guide (big TV events can lead to a surge in take-away pizza sales), from the fixtures calendars of sports such as the NRL's State of Origin, and from Domino's own marketing schedule, to spot patterns in the data that humans might easily overlook.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/ai-cameras-to-detect-violence-on-sydney-trains-552635
AI cameras to detect violence on Sydney trains
By Justin Hendry on Aug 31, 2020 11:48AM
Software trial emerges from innovation challenge.
CCTV cameras on Sydney’s heavy rail network will be augmented with artificial intelligence over the next six months to automatically detect and report suspicious and violent incidents.
Transport for NSW plans to trial the technology to analyse footage captured by the cameras, as part of a new initiative to improve safety for women travelling on public transport at night.
It is just one of four winning ideas from the Safety After Dark Innovation Challenge, which offered applicants equity-free seed funding and support through TfNSW's digital accelerator.
Researchers from the University of Wollongong’s SMART Infrastructure Facility pitched the AI software, which can automatically analyse real-time camera feeds and alert operators.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=66159941-430e-4f6c-bdd4-56898a9afad1
Data Privacy in a Data and Algorithm Enabled World
Gilbert + Tobin Peter Leonard
- Data privacy statutes around the world are no longer fit for purpose.
- Adoption of recommendations of the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry and other current proposals for revision of the Privacy Act 1988 will not fix this problem: the proposals do not envisage moving decisively away from notice and choice as the foundation for data privacy regulation.
- The often misdescribed ‘gold standard’ of GDPR is not the solution.
- We need to go back to basics, and ask ‘what harms should privacy law address’, or as Prof Julie Cohen put it, ‘what is privacy for’? We then need to redraft our statutes to (at least) protect the right and interests of individual humans to go about their lives without excessive intrusion upon reasonable expectations of seclusion.
Almost all data privacy statutes around the world are no longer reasonably fit for purpose.
The long list of unfit statutes includes:
- the Privacy Act 1988 (C’th) and its State and Territory counterparts,
- the Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 (NSW) and the Workplace Privacy Act 2011 (ACT),
- the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 (Cth), and the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW) and all other State and Territory counterparts dealing with surveillance devices and listening devices.
Twenty years into the 21st century, the design specification for 21st century data privacy laws is finally becoming clear.
The problem that needs to be addressed can be simply stated: data privacy statutes are intended to protect human dignity, but instead focus on data, not humans. Humans have an interest (and should have a legal right) in and to reasonable seclusion. Data is completely indifferent as to whether it relates to humans or machines. Data has no concept of human frailties and needs. So humans need to make decisions about how and when data about humans is collected and used. Humans within entities that collect and use data about other humans should have a concept of frailties and reasonable expectations of affected humans - I avoid use of the term ‘data subject’, which term is not appropriately respectful of humans.
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https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2020/34/telehealth-call-for-formal-clinical-governance-framework/
Telehealth: call for formal clinical governance framework
Jeetendra
Mathur
Georgia Zammit
Grant Phelps
TELEHEALTH can be defined as providing health care, including preventive, diagnostic and treatment services, by using information and communication technologies such as videoconferencing, electronic messaging and telephone calls (here and here).
In recent years, with the increasing use of technology in health care, the provision of health care services has seen a transition away from traditional face-to-face consultation and assessment towards virtual models. Telehealth improves access, overcomes distance or interstate travel barriers, and provides patients with the convenience and availability of health care clinicians from the comfort of one’s home. Telehealth also provides both clinicians and consumers with an additional layer of safety in relation to infection control.
We have come to realise the importance of telehealth amid the current COVID-19 pandemic. We have witnessed an exponential surge in the promotion and use of telehealth services and its emergence as a potential and promising tool to deliver a range of health care services. This is evident from the fact that more than 7 million telehealth consultations funded by the Medicare Benefits Schedule have been provided throughout Australia since March 2020-----
https://www.doctology.com.au/post/top-25-healthtech-capital-raises-in-australia
Top Australian Healthtech / Medtech Capital Raises
You may have the greatest idea on the planet for a healthtech / medtech product or service, but without sufficient funding, by the right people at the right time in the right hands, you can kiss those pipe-dreams goodbye.
Below are some of the biggest healthtech / medtech funding raises in the last five years (these are one-off raises, or one “round” of funding, not a cumulative total of funds raised since inception):
1. MedicalDirector - $155 million (2016) - Led by Affinity Capital
2. Genie - $50 million (2017) - Led by IMF Investors
3. Harrison.ai - $29 million (2019) - Led by Blackbird Ventures
4. HealthEngine - $26.7 million (2017) - Led by Sequoia India
5. Vaxxas - $25 million (2015) - Led by OneVentures
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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