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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 were dated 6 December, 2018 and we have seen none since! Its pretty sad!
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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Big data for liberal democracy
Governments must do more than admonish or prescribe. They need big tech as partners.
The brinkmanship between the Morrison government and two tech giants was unmissable viewing for Australians and many across the world.
That the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code was passed by the parliament on the last sitting day last month speaks to the mettle of Josh Frydenberg and the willingness of politicians from all sides to serve the national interest.
But these are still early days in terms of Australia and other liberal democratic governments redefining their relationship with big tech. There is no appetite to allow giant firms to write their own rules.
At the same time, governments are growing ever more dependent on big tech to execute policy and achieve core objectives, meaning the need to collaborate with firms they cannot completely control. Done well or poorly, the implications for sovereignty, national security and geopolitics will be immense.
The top five big tech American firms — Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google) and Facebook — have a market value of about $9.5 trillion and earned revenues of just under $1.2 trillion last year. The combined market capitalisation is more than five times the size of Australia’s gross domestic product and their revenues more than twice what Canberra received in fiscal revenue in the same year.
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Australia's new 'hacking' powers considered too wide-ranging and coercive by OAIC
The Information Commissioner has asked the powers given to law enforcement under the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill be accompanied by appropriate privacy safeguards.
By Asha Barbaschow | March 2, 2021 -- 05:03 GMT (16:03 AEDT) | Topic: Security
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has labelled the powers given to two law enforcement bodies within three new computer warrants as "wide-ranging and coercive in nature".
The Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020, if passed, would hand the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) the new warrants for dealing with online crime.
The first of the warrants is a data disruption one, which according to the Bill's explanatory memorandum, is intended to be used to prevent "continuation of criminal activity by participants, and be the safest and most expedient option where those participants are in unknown locations or acting under anonymous or false identities".
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Australia's news media bargaining code is a form of ransomware, and someone paid up
The battle baffled the world. The big so-called 'tech companies' now have to pay Australian news producers to use their content, but what actually happened here?
By Stilgherrian for The Full Tilt | March 5, 2021 -- 02:22 GMT (13:22 AEDT) | Topic: Tech Industry
A completely understandable section of the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2021
We need to do something. This is something. Therefore we need to do it. This is the logic that led to Australia's wondrously strange news media bargaining code.
Let's take a step back. There was indeed a problem, a problem that goes back more than a quarter of a century. It's that the internet changed everything. But it was only ever really a problem for news business that failed to adapt.
News is expensive to make. That's why for most of the 20th century, commercial news operations bundled it with advertising, which was the main income stream, and cheap filler content.
The audience got the whole bundle in one lump, whether it be on dead trees whose slaughter and distribution they paid for, or via radio or TV.
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Cyber bullying bill: ABC warns of potential government interference
Finbar O'Mallon Reporter
Mar 5, 2021 – 6.09pm
The ABC warns a new bill designed to combat online bullying could compromise the editorial independence of its news arm.
But the broadcaster is supportive of parts of the bill, which it says would help reduce the abuse faced by its reporters.
It also doesn’t want to be held responsible for the abusive comments left by website users and wants the power to remove them from social media.
The broadcaster’s concerns are outlined in a submission to consultation on the government’s proposed cyber safety bill.
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The whole internet pays for Google and Facebook to be free
By Alex Webb
March 5, 2021 — 7.40am
Google and Facebook make a lot of noise about how their main services are free to use. And it’s true, they are. But what they don’t highlight is their role in making almost everything else we consume online more expensive.
Consider all the paywalls and paid services that are rolling out across the internet. News, films, music and even theatrical streaming are now available for a subscription fee. The latest example is Twitter, which announced last week that it plans a paid product, dubbed “Super Follows,” where users can charge followers for “premium” tweets and other content. The move is a way for the company to decrease its dependence on advertising revenue - a pot of money that’s increasingly being swallowed up by just Google and Facebook.
If online power, and the ad revenue that comes with it, continues to concentrate within those two platforms, expect what you watch, read or listen to elsewhere on the web to start costing you money.
Before the internet, advertising subsidised all the media we consumed, from TV and radio to magazines and newspapers. This ad-supported model made its way to the web and conditioned us to expect online content to be free. News organisations, for example, didn’t charge readers, in the misguided hope that more eyeballs on their stories would bring in more revenue from the banner ads they displayed.
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https://www.miragenews.com/acem-statement-on-royal-commission-into-aged-523086/
March 4, 2021 2:16 pm AEDT
ACEM statement on Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety
The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM; the College) acknowledges the release of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety’s final report and supports its intent of developing a new rights-based aged care system.
With the Royal Commission having highlighted many deeply disturbing issues and problems with the way older people are cared for in this country, the report must be a catalyst for improvements in the way some of our society’s most vulnerable receive healthcare.
Older people deserve access to timely, affordable, appropriate and high-standard healthcare. Where feasible and appropriate, this should be delivered in the environment of their choice – be it their own home, hospital, or residential aged care facility (RACF). ACEM hopes the release of the final report, and the implementation of its recommendations, will help achieve improvements to systems which have failed too many for too long.
Member of the ACEM Geriatric Emergency Medicine Executive Dr Ellen Burkett said:
“Older people living in RACFs have increasingly complex healthcare needs and are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. This vulnerability was highlighted during COVID-19 outbreaks last year, with the impacts of widespread long-standing understaffing, under-resourcing and lack of governance of aged care facilities having devastating impacts.”
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b248e546-78f4-4a8e-9e05-7d031387fca6
The Most Important Regulator You May Have Never Heard Of
Australia March 1 2021
A fundamental function of any government is to provide for the safety and wellbeing of its citizens. While we commonly think of law enforcement, emergency services and public healthcare as the primary tools used by governments to meet this function, in recent years governments around the world have also grappled with how to keep their people safe online.
Given that almost all of us now socialise, work, transact, learn and, in the case of young people, grow-up on the internet, it is perfectly logical (and reasonable) to expect governments to respond to the unique challenges that arise in the digital world. Such challenges range from cyberbullying, image-based abuse and doxing, to the sharing of misinformation and other objectionable content. You might be surprised to know that the world’s first regulator dedicated to online safety emerged in Australia: the eSafety Commissioner.
Enter the eSafety Commissioner
This regulator was originally introduced as the Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner under the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act 2015 (Cth) (EOSA). Developed after significant public consultation dating back to January 2014, the original legislation had a clear focus on responding to cyber-bullying against children.
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Google says it will stop tracking users in Chrome to sell ads
By Kelvin Chan
March 4, 2021 — 5.34am
Google says it won’t develop new ways to follow individual users across the internet after it phases out existing ad tracking technology from Chrome browsers, in a change that threatens to shake up the online advertising industry.
The digital giant has been working on proposals to remove from Chrome so-called third party cookies, which are snippets of code used by a website’s advertisers to record browsing history in order to show users personalised ads.
Third-party cookies have long been a key tool for marketers to deliver targeted ads but they’ve also been a source of privacy concerns, so Google has proposed instead grouping together web users with similar interests and keeping web histories private on user devices.
Now the company - which will continue to be able to track users through its services like Search or Maps - has signalled that it’s taking another step toward abandoning the use of individual tracking for ad sales.
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Google baulks at proposed online safety bill
Finbar O'Mallon Reporter
Mar 3, 2021 – 12.12pm
Google claims that to pull harmful content off the internet within a day under proposed new laws could lead to technology companies inadvertently shutting down entire websites.
The search and advertising giant has raised its concerns in a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the federal government’s proposed online safety legislation.
At the same time, smaller tech firms say the proposed laws give the eSafety Commissioner too much power, and they want an industry stakeholder body to consult with government.
The bill, introduced in Parliament last week, targets cyber bullying by obliging tech companies to remove harmful content under tighter time frames and broader definitions, while requiring them to better police what users publish online.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/telephone-killed-the-video-star/40710
3 March 2021
Telephone killed the video star?
Communication Technology Telehealth
Back in 1979, the Buggles lamented the demise of the radio star. Video, the new technology, was displacing radio as an entertainment medium.
Conversely, in general practice the phone, the old technology, is displacing video as a telehealth medium.
The argument
I contend that general practitioners (GPs) should be doing more video consultations and fewer phone consultations.
The context
In one month, the Department of Health will introduce a new model for Medicare telehealth. The features of this new model are not yet known. Any changes that will be made to the current model are not yet known.
There has been no research published on telehealth in Australian general practice. There are surveys in progress that are examining GPs’ experiences, their use of telehealth, and their attitudes about telehealth. There are surveys in progress examining patients’ experiences, use, and attitudes regarding telehealth.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/practice/why-australias-biggest-antivax-group-has-quit-facebook
Why Australia's biggest anti-vax group has quit Facebook
The Australian Vaccination-risk Network says it's had enough of the social media giant's meddling
1st February 2021
Facebook has copped criticism for not doing enough to shut down anti-vaccine propaganda, but apparently it’s done enough for some, specifically the Australian Vaccination-risks Network (AVN).
The organisation, once known as the Australian Vaccination Network until it was forced to rebrand because the name was misleading the public as to its actual agenda, says it’s had enough of the social media behemoth and decided to quit.
“We cannot support a platform that is so blatant about silencing us and so many others,” it posted in its allegedly final Facebook post.
Has the AVN been silenced?
It still has plenty of anti-vax posts on the site.
But the network does appear to be on the receiving end of Facebook’s new policy of making anti-vax pages more difficult for users to stumble upon by removing them from its search results.
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Google Australia alarmed by breadth of online safety laws, govt haste
By Justin Hendry on Mar 2, 2021 10:52PM
Wanted bill refined before being put to parliament.
Google Australia is concerned the breadth of proposed online safety laws could snare unsuspecting cloud infrastructure services and see companies over-remove content in a bid to comply.
The internet giant made the comments in a submission to the exposure draft of the Online Safety Bill before the bill was introduced to federal parliament last week, just 10 days after an earlier consulation process finished.
If passed, the bill will establish a cyber abuse takedown scheme for adults, requiring social media services, designated internet services and hosting services to remove material within 24 hours.
It will also give the eSafety Commissioner the power to require ISPs to block access to domain names, URLs or IP addresses containing abhorrent violent material, formalising an existing ad-hoc scheme.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/twitter-crackdown-covid19-vax-misinformation
Twitter crackdown on COVID-19 vax misinformation
Three-strikes policy and warning labels on tweets part of expanded Twitter guidance on health info
2nd March 2021
Twitter says it will apply warnings to tweets that contain misleading information about COVID-19 vaccines and implement a strike system of enforcement that could see users permanently banned for repeat violations.
The social media network started promoting public health information before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic.
It also aimed to remove demonstrably false or misleading content about the virus that had the highest risk of causing harm.
Since introducing its COVID-19 guidance, it said it had removed more than 8400 tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts.
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My Health Record - Portal Operator Registration Agreement v23032020
The purpose of Portal Operator Registration Agreement is to satisfy the System Operator that the person applying to be a View Only Portal operator complies with the My Health Records Act and Rules, and agrees to be bound by the conditions of registration outlined in this document.
Identifier: DH-3116:2020
Date: 23-03-2020
Size: 832.28 KB
Type: application/pdf
SHA256 Checksum: 543225c2439b506e7cbde7bf2c8460f40578e62da498367194165d81d707ea3a
My Health Record Mobile Developer Welcome Pack v1.1
By operation of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability (Establishing the Australian Digital Health Agency) Rule 2016, on 1 July 2016, all the assets and liabilities of NEHTA will vest in the Australian Digital Health Agency. In this website, on and from 1 July 2016, all references to "National E-Health Transition Authority" or "NEHTA" will be deemed to be references to the Australian Digital Health Agency. PCEHR means the My Health Record, formerly the "Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record", within the meaning of the My Health Records Act 2012 (Cth), formerly called the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Act 2012 (Cth).
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My Health Record - App Vendor Guide to the Connection Process v1.0
This document describes the process involved in developing an application (app) that connects with the My Health Record system.
Identifier: DH-3085:2020
Date: 24-02-2020
Size: 380.97 KB
Type: application/pdf
SHA256 Checksum: cdd55604036a69c7f4a647c1f2b5e38aed0da311a6e21642a02bb6af80cdcdab
No other releases available.
My Health Record Mobile Developer Welcome Pack v1.1
By operation of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability (Establishing the Australian Digital Health Agency) Rule 2016, on 1 July 2016, all the assets and liabilities of NEHTA will vest in the Australian Digital Health Agency. In this website, on and from 1 July 2016, all references to "National E-Health Transition Authority" or "NEHTA" will be deemed to be references to the Australian Digital Health Agency. PCEHR means the My Health Record, formerly the "Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record", within the meaning of the My Health Records Act 2012 (Cth), formerly called the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Act 2012 (Cth).
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Case study content packs
< See all stakeholder materials
Each
pack includes a selection of photos and social media tiles.
To view the case study videos, please see the My Health Record YouTube channel,
'My Health Record Stories' playlist.
Attachment Use Type Size Issued From
Bill Hardy National Content pack 84.89 MB 24 Aug 2018 Gold Coast local Bill Hardy lives an active and healthy lifestyle. Bill’s battle with prostate cancer involved a range of health professionals. My Health Record has helped Bill to track all his medications and results throughout his treatment.
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Are blood sugar monitors the future of fitness?
If I’m hesitating as I attempt to apply the latest data-tracking fitness accessory it is because it involves puncturing the skin of my upper arm to get started. In one hand I am holding an applicator the size of an egg cup, in the other a case containing a tiny biosensor and needle, the idea being that I connect and position them, then punch the “ultra-thin filament” just under my skin.
It sounds straightforward, but I can’t convince myself to perform the injection and in the end my husband does it for me. A short, sharp stab and the sensor is in situ, ready to provide readings that I’m told will reveal everything I need to know about my energy levels and powers of recovery.
Workout monitoring does not get much more futuristic. The device now lodged partly beneath my skin is a continuous blood glucose monitor (or CGM), a medical aid originally developed to track the blood sugar of people with diabetes that is now being pitched as a performance enhancer not only for top athletes but for anyone trying to improve their fitness.
This particular model, the Abbott Libre Sense Glucose Sport Biosensor, connects via Bluetooth to an app called Supersapiens (available on iOS and Android) to provide real-time feedback about how my body responds to food and exercise. The app is free but the sensors cost from $AU200 to $AU247 (depending on whether you buy them as a one-off or as part of a subscription) for two, which should each last 14 days.
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The rules of the tech game are changing
The Economist
The idea of the technology industry being dominated by monopolies is so widely held that it has monopolised much thinking, from investors’ strategies to antitrust watchdogs’ legal briefs. Yet, as we explain, it is getting harder to sustain. After a long period of ossification, the industry is entering a dynamic phase. In America digital markets are shifting towards oligopolies, in which second and third firms compete vigorously against the incumbent. The big tech firms are wrestling over customers and data: witness the confrontation between Apple and Facebook over who controls iPhone users’ privacy. And all across Asia digital conglomerates are battling it out. The industry’s emerging structure is a far cry from the open, diffuse capitalism The Economist supports. But an oligopoly of rivals is much better than a monopoly.
The gale of creative destruction used to blow hard in Silicon Valley. The list of firms toppled from dominance runs from Fairchild Semiconductor to Hewlett-Packard. Yet recently the giants have clung on: Apple and Microsoft are over 40 years old and Alphabet and Amazon over 20; even Facebook is 17 this month. What happened? Network and scale effects mean that size begets size, while data can act as a barrier to entry. Search, social media, advertising, e-commerce, streaming, ride-hailing, delivery and payments all exhibit these alchemical properties to some degree. Having achieved supremacy in their chosen area, many tech firms, especially the big ones, have shown little appetite to compete directly with each other in the past decade. The three most common searches on Microsoft Bing are Facebook, YouTube and Google. Does anyone remember Amazon’s Fire Phone?
At first glance nothing has changed. Tech firms enjoyed a lucrative 2020 and investors are betting more is to come. The $US7.6 trillion ($9.9 trillion) market value of America’s five giants implies their sales will double in the next decade. Yet if you look more closely, a shift is under way. The incumbents are not getting smaller — their weighted-average market share is stable, at about 35 per cent across each of 11 American tech subsectors. But the share of second and third firms has risen from 18 per cent to 26 per cent since 2015. This reflects two deeper trends.
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Facebook deals stall over ‘poison pill’ as it hints at News tab launch
Miranda Ward Media writer
Mar 1, 2021 – 12.00am
Facebook is expected to launch its dedicated news product in Australia once it completes deals with local publishers, but those agreements are stalling over the “poison pill” clause.
Facebook News pays publishers for content that will appear in a dedicated section within the Facebook app – similar to Google’s News Showcase product – which is likely to be part of deals with local publishers.
Facebook News was launched in the US in 2020 but Australia was left off due to ongoing discussions about the media bargaining code that became law last week.
The social platform is in active negotiations with local publishers, including News Corp, Nine (publisher of The Australian Financial Review) and Guardian Australia, and industry sources said Facebook had indicated the product would be launched once agreements had been reached.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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