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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! It’s 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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Bigger and stronger, but swarmed by doubts: The year in tech empires
By Shira Ovide
December 25, 2021 — 2.00pm
Big Tech got bigger-er and stronger in 2021. The empires of technology also appeared more vulnerable than ever to the forces of regulation, competition, a complicated public mood and perhaps hubris.
Yup, this is a contradiction. But this stronger-but-weaker phenomenon for Big Tech is likely to continue in 2022.
Behind this trend is the same question I keep asking: Are technology superpowers including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook invincible in a way that prior generations of corporate titans were not?
First, here’s a glimpse at ways that Big Tech reached the stratosphere in 2021. Apple, already the world’s most valuable business, is close to reaching an unimaginable stock market value of $US3 trillion ($4.2 trillion). That’s about eight Walmarts, or more than the value of the entire German stock market.
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https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-urged-to-drop-online-age-verification-push/
Govt urged to drop online age verification push
Denham
Sadler
National Affairs Editor
21 December 2021
A number of digital rights organisations have called on the federal government to abandon its plan to require social media firms to verify the age of their users, saying this would undermine privacy and has “failed comprehensively” in other countries.
The Online Privacy Bill, which increases penalties for breaches of privacy by social media firms and introduces a binding Online Privacy code, was unveiled in October.
The code will apply to a broad range of tech firms, including Facebook, Google, Reddit, Bumble and OnlyFans, and requires them to take “reasonable” steps to verify the age of users.
The government is now consulting on this legislation, with a number of submitters raising concerns that the privacy reforms are being introduced before a significant review of the Privacy Act is completed, and that it focuses too heavily on protecting children online rather than all people.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7fe71ca7-f125-40de-b6aa-f61ef67c7342
Major reform of Australia’s electronic surveillance framework
Bird & Bird LLP Patrick Cordwell and Thomas Jones
Australia December 21 2021
The Australian Government recently signalled its intention to replace the existing patchwork of surveillance laws with a unified piece of legislation, in what it has described as the “most significant reform to Australia’s national security laws in more than four decades”.
The proposal is set out in a discussion paper entitled ‘Reform of Australia’s electronic surveillance framework’ published by the Department of Home Affairs on 6 December 2021.
The discussion paper outlines the Government’s plan to repeal the Surveillance Devices Act 2004, Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 and parts of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 in favour of a “single, streamlined and technology-neutral Act”. The new Act would govern telecommunications interception, covert access to stored communications, and the use of listening and tracking devices under a single law.
It follows a comprehensive review in 2019 by the National Intelligence Community (comprised of Australia’s intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies), which found that the legal framework is no longer fit for purpose and requires wholesale reform. The existing laws were as being unnecessarily complex, confusing and based on outdated assumptions that cannot be easily applied to modern communication technologies. These findings are unsurprising given that the legislation was developed when circuit-switched carrier networks were the norm and Voice over IP and Over-the-Top ("OTT") communication were unheard of.
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https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request/adverse_findings_from_the_austra
Adverse findings from the Australian Information Commissioner
Verity Pane made this Freedom of Information request to Australian Digital Health Agency
Currently waiting for a response from Australian Digital Health Agency, they should respond promptly and normally no later than January 24, 2022 (details).
Dear Australian Digital Health Agency,
The Australian Information Commissioner recently made adverse findings against the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) finding that:
(i) ADHA's refusal to process my FOI request because it was made through Right to Know (and not directly to ADHA's preferred email address) was invalid, and that the 30 day processing period commenced on the original receipt of the Right to Know FOI request; and
(ii) that the ADHA had in bad faith ("to buy us some more time... [have her] waiting until after... [the] Senate inquiry hearing") delayed the processing of that FOI on grounds other than the ADHA claimed, in order to prevent release of the My Health Record opt-out statistics sought for political reasons not relevant to the operation of the FOI Act
The Information Commissioner has directed the ADHA to undertake 4 steps, including formal review of all procedures and practices, making a senior executive responsible for promoting compliance with the FOI Act, and that the agency head is to issue a statement to all staff highlighting ADHA's obligations under the FOI Act and its pro-disclosure emphasis.
Unusually the ADHA declined the opportunity to make response to the Australian Information Commissioner on her investigation conclusions.
The above is provided to provide such information as is reasonably necessary to enable the ADHA to identity documents falling within scope of this FOI request
I seek copy of any document held by the ADHA about:
* why ADHA did not respond to the Australian Information Commissioner's investigation findings, given the significance of a finding by the Australian Information Commissioner that the ADHA had knowingly misrepresented the reasons for why it intentionally delayed access unlawfully
* any past adverse findings (other those above) made by the Australian Information Commissioner about the ADHA's conduct and practices.
Yours faithfully,
Verity Pane
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=e260b642-d74d-4683-830f-0fda94e7c1a2
Regulating the comment section: The 'Anti-Trolling' Bill
Minter Ellison - Patrick Considine, Tess McGuire and Dougal Hurley
Australia December 21 2021
The government is proposing new laws to regulate online speech. The laws would put greater onus of responsibility on social media platforms as primary publishers of the content posted on their sites.
The Commonwealth government has released the exposure draft of new laws to regulate online speech.
The Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill 2021 is in response to the High Court's decision in Fairfax Media Publications v Voller [2021] HCA 27 (Voller). The Court held that all hosts of pages or individual posts, including the media, businesses or community groups, who 'facilitate, encourage and thereby assist' the posting of comments by third-party users, are liable for those comments in defamation law, including comments or posts they were not aware of.
Voller restated principles of publication which predate the modern internet age, and require media entities to actively moderate or turn off comments to reduce the possibility of defamation liability.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2e6875b3-153e-4437-b753-8e8a753a612a
Digital Platform Services Inquiry: The road so far, and what to expect in 2022
Clayton Utz Kirsten Webb, Michael Corrigan, Bruce Lloyd, Elizabeth Richmond, Mihkel Wilding, Adrian Kuti and Joel Von Thien
Australia December 20 2021
The ACCC's Digital Platform Services Inquiry is in full swing, and is set to report in September 2022 on regulatory reforms to address the matters identified in three interim reports so far.
On 10 February 2020, the Australian Government directed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to conduct a five-year inquiry into markets for the supply of digital platform services and their impacts on competition and consumers (the Digital Platform Services Inquiry or DPSI). The DPSI follows the ACCC's Digital Platform Inquiry of 2019 (DPI).
The ACCC has released three interim reports as part of the DPSI:
- Online private messaging (September 2020)
- App marketplaces (March 2021)
- Search defaults and choice screens (September 2021)
We summarise below the key takeaways from each of the three reports released so far (with two other reports scheduled for release in 2022).
Online private messaging services (October 2020)
The first DPSI interim report focused on online private messaging services in Australia offered by a wide variety of platforms. Online private messaging services encompass a range of services, including text, audio and video messaging services.
In its report the ACCC identified potential consumer concerns relating to:
- the display of sponsored search results on mobile devices, and the extent to which sponsored content can reduce the ability of consumers to obtain information through search that best suits their needs;
- the tracking of users' online activity, including the ability of new products and services (such as voice assistants and augmented and virtual reality services) to increase providers' ability to collect consumer data;
- consumers' allegedly limited understanding of the data practices that they consent to;
- scams on digital platforms, which the ACCC has found to be increasing (with an 89% increase in scam activity in 2021 compared to 2020).
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Horrific child sex abuse could see tech giants fines $550k
A major overhaul to tech laws could see tech giants fined $550,000 over one social media post.
December 21, 2021 - 8:30AM
NCA NewsWire
Tech giants could be fined more than $550,000 for failing to pull down horrific child sex abuse material from websites, as the government continues to crack down on online harms.
Under new regulatory guidance, child sexual exploitation material and terrorist content will be removed by the eSafety Commissioner, no matter where in the world the content is hosted.
If websites or apps systemically ignore take down notices from the Commissioner, their sites could be delinked from search engines or their apps removed from app stores, under new laws set to be passed by the Morrison government.
In addition, individuals face fines of up to $111,000 per offence, while corporations could be penalised $555,000.
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‘We’ve had enough with trolling’: AG Cash pressures Labor on social media crackdown
December 20, 2021 — 5.00am
Attorney-General Michaelia Cash has urged federal Labor to support the government’s proposed anti-trolling laws in a clear signal the government wants to make its crackdown on tech giants a political issue before the next election.
In an exclusive interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Senator Cash said there were rising concerns in the electorate about the use of anonymous accounts on social media platforms to trash people’s reputations.
“This is a very simple bill that says we’ve had enough with online trolling,” Senator Cash said. “If Anthony Albanese and Labor cannot support that then quite frankly, they are failing Australians.”
The government last month unveiled a crackdown on anonymous trolling online. Under the planned new laws, social media platforms will be forced to have a complaint scheme that will let users request anonymous trolls' identities or risk being liable for defamation payouts. The government has said it would be willing to fund test cases against social media platforms to ensure the proposal worked.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nsw-launches-whole-of-gov-id-recovery-service-574226
NSW launches whole-of-gov ID recovery service
By Justin Hendry on Dec 20, 2021 12:25PM
Streamlines support for citizens.
The NSW government has launched its new identity recovery unit, IDSupport NSW, to streamline the process of replacing compromised credentials.
The unit, first announced in October, will act as a single point of contact for citizens who have fallen victim to identity theft or had their personal data compromised in a data breach.
It will work with NSW agencies and identity and cyber support service IDCARE to replace compromised identity documents and mitigate the risk of stolen credentials being used.
Minister for Digital and Customer Service Victor Dominello said the unit was important for dealing with identity crime, which he described as “growing and increasingly sophisticated”.
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Online abuse is toxic, and it must stop
8:06PM December 19, 2021
Almost a quarter of Australian women aged 18-24 have had a nude or sexual image of them posted online without their consent.
This is a remarkable and deeply troubling statistic.
On the one hand it highlights just how quickly the internet has become a dominant influence in the way we interact with each other. On the other it highlights how the internet, for all the benefits it has delivered, has also created significant new risks of harm.
The rise of image-based abuse (or what we colloquially call “revenge porn”) as a threat to young women was what I thought of, first, when I read Paul Kelly’s article in The Australian last Wednesday, aptly titled, ‘Big Tech threat to young women compels us to act’. Kelly argues that Big Tech, specifically social media, is a threat to young people — but young women especially — and that this has been a key factor in the Morrison government’s recent policy decisions on online safety.
Kelly is spot on.
This was highlighted all over again with the recent vicious trolling of my friend and colleague Nicolle Flint, the MP for Boothby in Adelaide. A popular left-wing YouTube channel posted a highly misogynistic video, attacking Nicolle, that resulted in a torrent of threatening and abusive comments. And yet, when she asked Google to remove this toxic abuse, she got nowhere.
But let’s be clear: this isn’t about women politicians, or women celebrities, or women sport stars. It’s simply about women.
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The government’s data strategy must address the conflict between data value and data risk
RACHAEL GREAVES
11:00PM December 19, 2021
A new federal government data strategy will focus on collaboration, re-use, and security. These themes have been championed by government departments, and are key aspects of the overarching digital economy strategy for whole of government.
What the strategies don’t address is how we as a nation will manage the inherent conflict between data value and data risk. We get value from data by using it, sharing it, and integrating it together. But the more we use, share, and connect data sources, the greater our security risk grows.
Aggregating and making data accessible is directly at odds with the zero-trust model of security.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t do it and increasing data visibility can help manage risk. Knowing what we have, where it is, and who is doing what it helps us understand our weak points. One of the key causes of breaches is “dark data” – risky information (such as IP addresses, passwords, or personal information) that’s “lost” in the environment, not being controlled. The organisation’s governance team may not be able to find it, but a threat actor can. They tend to have more time than overstretched security teams, and better tools.
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Making data count: junior APS staff learn how the census informs policy advice
As departments and agencies await fresh Australian Census data in mid-2022, junior staff are learning from data experts about how it will drive better policy outcomes.
Experts guided APS staff who recently attended a Graduate Data Network through how census data informs policy formulation across different agencies.
Tracey Chester, from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, said a census overall helps the government innovate in response to future planning challenges.
“[Census data is] informing many important decisions around transport, school, healthcare infrastructure and business at the community and national level,” Chester says.
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David.
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