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This weekly blog is to explore the larger issues around Digital Health, data security, data privacy, AI / ML. technology, social media and related matters.
I will also try to highlight ADHA Propaganda when I come upon it.
Just so we keep count, the latest Notes from the ADHA Board are dated 6 December, 2018! Secrecy unconstrained! This is really the behaviour of a federal public agency gone rogue – and it just goes on! When you read this it will be close to 14 months of radio silence, and worse, while the CEO, COO and the Chief of Staff have gone, still no change. I wonder will things improve at some point – so far seems not?
Note: Appearance here is not to suggest I see any credibility or value in what follows. I will leave it to the reader to decide what is worthwhile and what is not! The point is to let people know what is being said / published that I have come upon.
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A nationally representative survey of 3737 adults found seven out of 10 respondents would support further legislation to stop the spread of hateful content online.
Most people acknowledged legislation alone would not be enough, with nearly eight of 10 adults also calling for social networks to do more to tackle the problem.
A 'seismic shift' as community backs new laws to fix online hate
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
February 2, 2020 — 5.45am
Australia has reached a "tipping point” in its tolerance for online hate speech, with a large majority of people calling for new laws to tackle the growing problem.A nationally representative survey of 3737 adults found seven out of 10 respondents would support further legislation to stop the spread of hateful content online.
Most people acknowledged legislation alone would not be enough, with nearly eight of 10 adults also calling for social networks to do more to tackle the problem.
Zuckerberg says he doesn't need Facebook to be liked. That's new.
By Sarah Frier
February 1, 2020 — 12.00pm
Mark Zuckerberg used to want everyone to like Facebook. Now, he doesn't care anymore.
The Facebook's CEO has warned that this year he will take strong, controversial positions on issues facing his company. He is making the change after being told that for the past decade, Facebook didn't communicate its plans clearly because its management was too worried about offending people.
"This led to some positive but shallow sentiment towards us, and then towards the company," Zuckerberg said on an earnings call on Wednesday. "And my goal for this next decade isn't to be liked, but to be understood. Because in order to be trusted, people need to know what you stand for."
Over the past decade, Facebook has invested heavily in monitoring whether the company and its executive team were liked and respected, or considered innovative. It was an exercise that seemed to fit a tech giant that created the iconic "Like" button, and made strides in monetising users' interests.
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Home Affairs report reveals deeper problems with Australia's encryption laws
The first seven months of Australia's controversial encryption laws didn't see an explosion of decryptions. Worry instead about the cops bypassing judges to get their interception warrants approved.
Australian law enforcement agencies used their controversial new powers under the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 just seven times in seven months, and all were voluntary Technical Assistance Requests (TARs).
That's five times by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and twice by the NSW Police from the time the laws came into effect in early December 2018 through to the end of June 2019. No other cops chose to play.
After all, cops hate paperwork. If direct observation and interviews don't produce enough evidence for a prosecution, then stored telco metadata might. That's an internal request, and it might well deliver enough to seal the deal.
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My Health Record documents approach 2 billion
30 January, 2020 ADHA Propaganda
The total number of My Health Records as of December is now 22.68 million.
Close to two billion documents have been uploaded to the My Health Record database, with more than 100 million uploaded in December alone.
The total number of My Health Records as of December is 22.68 million, with NSW having the most records at 7.2 million, followed by Victoria with 5.6 million, according to figures from the Digital Health Agency which oversees the system.
A total of 1.7 billion documents have been uploaded to the system. Medicare records make up the majority of documents uploaded (1.5 billion), followed by medical documents (101.4 million) and clinical records (49.3 million).
In December, healthcare providers uploaded 10.5 million documents. Pharmacists uploaded the most, (5 million), followed by GPs who uploaded 3 million.
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Zuckerberg promises privacy after $819m facial recognition settlement
By Jonathan Stempel
January 31, 2020 — 7.33am
Facebook has reached a $US550 million ($819 million) settlement of claims it collected and stored millions of users' biometric data without their consent, as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg pledged better protections for users to address privacy concerns that have dogged the social media company.
The proposed class-action settlement was disclosed by Facebook's chief financial officer on a conference call to discuss fourth-quarter results, and by lawyers for Facebook users who called it the largest cash settlement of a privacy lawsuit.
Facebook did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement, which requires court approval.
The accord followed Facebook's $US5 billion settlement last year with the US Federal Trade Commission, which arose from the company's having allowed British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest data for an estimated 87 million users.
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Bushfire emergency highlights the importance of updating patient information on My Health Record
29/01/2020 ADHA Propaganda
The Shared Health Summary (SHS) represents the patient's health status at a point in time. SHS can be created at any consultation, and may include information about a patient's medical history, including medical conditions, medicines, allergies and adverse reactions and immunisations. This is likely to be the first document accessed by any other healthcare professionals.
In the current state of bushfire emergencies, My Health Record is a potential source of information Healthcare providers may not have otherwise had access to. My Health Record had significant benefits in the 2019 Townsville Floods where access to medicines information became a significant comfort to many displaced people who lacked access not only to their medicines, but to information about them.
The Shared Health Summary (SHS) represents the patient's health status at a point in time. SHS can be created at any consultation, and may include information about a patient's medical history, including medical conditions, medicines, allergies and adverse reactions and immunisations. This is likely to be the first document accessed by any other healthcare professionals.
In the current state of bushfire emergencies, My Health Record is a potential source of information Healthcare providers may not have otherwise had access to. My Health Record had significant benefits in the 2019 Townsville Floods where access to medicines information became a significant comfort to many displaced people who lacked access not only to their medicines, but to information about them.
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Should Australia Post become a 'digital locker' for citizens' data?
Concerns over foreign interference in public networks is prompting consideration of a government-owned and operated system, perhaps run by Australia Post and NBN.
Jan 30, 2020 — 12.00am
The UK decision to give the green light to Huawei highlights a worldwide government dilemma over which tech vendors to trust with sensitive citizen and sovereign institutional data and the need for a deep rethink of the ownership and operation of public sector networks.
In Australia, there is an opportunity to use the current review of Australia Post and questions about the ownership and role of NBN Co to consider building a trusted government-owned and operated data system to hold sensitive and confidential citizen data within a safe sovereign-controlled environment.
Return of the Postmaster?
In a back to the future idea, this could see a return of the once-mighty, Melbourne-based Postmaster-General, rebadged as the trusted digital custodian.
Questions over how to secure sovereign data systems from foreign government interference are being driven by the push by federal and state governments (co-ordinated by the fledgling Australian Digital and Data Council) to join up personalised citizen services, offer a single "tell us once" ID application, build pan-Australian safety systems, roll out real-time regulation and compliance, and aggressively use public data for better policymaking.
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Fake news on coronavirus hits Australia
Two state health departments have had to take action over intentionally misleading social media posts
29th January 2020
By Jo Hartley
Fake news over the coronavirus outbreak has been spreading over social media even affecting two Australian state health departments.
Both NSW Health and Queensland Health have had to act quickly this week to disown posts sent out in their names.
The one allegedly from NSW Health claimed a range of Chinese food products were contaminated with the virus.
The foods mentioned included rice, noodles and Chinese Red Bull, leading some social media responders to brand it racist.
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MHR helps pharmacist in bushfire zone
Nearly 13 million My Health Records are now active after 490,000 new records had documents uploaded – in just one month
And the records have proven invaluable to one pharmacist who was helping people in this summer’s disastrous NSW bushfires, says the Australian Digital Health Agency.
The Agency reports that the total number of records which contain information was nearing 13 million by the end of December 2019, up from 12.5 million in November.
Between November and December 2019 there was an 11% increase in the volume of medicine documents uploaded by health care providers including pharmacists and GPs, to more than 100 million documents.
There was also a 13% increase in clinical documents uploaded by health care providers including hospitals, pathologists and radiologists.
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Wednesday, 29 January 2020 10:47
Cybercriminals increase sophistication of ‘impersonation’ attacks
Cyber-criminals are using increasingly sophisticated impersonation attacks on Australian businesses, according to a new survey which found that 54% of Australian Infosec professionals faced phishing-triggered ransomware infections in 2019 — more than any of the other six countries surveyed, including the US, UK, Japan, Germany, France and Spain.
The latest State of the Phish report from security firm Proofpoint examined global data from nearly 50 million simulated phishing attacks sent by Proofpoint customers over a one-year period - along with third-party survey responses from more than 600 information security professionals in Australia, the US, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the UK.
“Australian organisations must take an active approach to cybersecurity education. Criminals are constantly refining their attack methods, using sophisticated emails lures, phone calls, and SMS to snare as many victims as possible,” said Crispin Kerr, Australian and New Zealand Country Manager for Proofpoint.
“Attackers do their homework, and their messages often seem personally relevant to recipients. Regular company-wide training is crucial to make sure staff can spot the warning signs and keep themselves and their organisation safe.”
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Data protection and privacy in Australia
Law and the regulatory authority
Legislative framework
Summarise the legislative framework for the protection of personally identifiable information (PII). Does your jurisdiction have a dedicated data protection law? Is the data protection law in your jurisdiction based on any international instruments on privacy or data protection?
The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act), which was enacted to give effect to Australia’s agreement to implement the OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (1980), governs how personal information is handled in Australia by the Commonwealth Government and private sector entities with an annual turnover of at least A$3 million (APP entities). Some small businesses (with a global aggregate group turnover of A$3 million or less) are also covered by the Privacy Act, including private health services providers that hold health information, businesses that sell or purchase personal information, credit-reporting bodies and contracted service providers for a Commonwealth contract.
‘Personal information’ is the conceptual equivalent of PII in other jurisdictions, and is defined as information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable, whether the information or opinion is true or not and whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not. It is still unclear whether metadata, cookies and IP addresses fall within the definition of personal information. However, while it will ultimately depend on the circumstances, the better view is that they are likely to be personal information and best practice in Australia is to align with international practice (which is of course informed by the online behavioural tracking rules in the GDPR). The Privacy Act contains 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), which set out the minimum standards for dealing with personal information and are the foundation of Australian privacy law. They cover the life cycle of the collection, use, storage, disclosure and destruction of personal information. The Privacy Act also includes credit-reporting obligations that govern the way in which personal credit information about individuals must be handled by credit-reporting bodies, credit providers and other third parties.
Note: This is a huge review!
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We’re sleepwalking into a surveillance state
By Farhad Manjoo
January 29, 2020 — 11.11am
There is much about the future that keeps me up at night — AI weaponry, undetectable viral deepfakes, indefatigable and infinitely wise robotic op-ed columnists — but in the last few years, one technological threat has blipped my fear radar much faster than others.
That fear? Ubiquitous surveillance.
I am no longer sure that human civilisation can undo or evade living under constant, extravagantly detailed physical and even psychic surveillance; as a species, we are not doing nearly enough to avoid always being watched or otherwise digitally recorded.
Your location, your purchases, video and audio from within your home and office, your online searches and every digital wandering, biometric tracking of your face and other body parts, your heart rate and other vital signs, your every communication, recording, and perhaps your deepest thoughts or idlest dreams — in the future, if not already, much of this data and more will be collected and analysed by some combination of governments and corporations, among them a handful of megacompanies whose powers nearly match those of governments.
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Inquiry to consider calls for 'screen scraping' ban
By Clancy Yeates
January 28, 2020 — 11.55pm
A Senate inquiry will weigh into the debate over "screen scraping" by fintech firms, with recommendations on the issue expected within months, after consumer groups called for a stop to the practice.
Screen scraping occurs when a consumer gives their banking user name and password to a third party, such as a fintech firm, in order to access their data. Some lenders also use the technique to conduct credit checks.
It has long been a point of tension in the industry, with some banks claiming it is risky, while proponents argue the practice is safe for consumers and important for competition.
The Senate's inquiry into financial technology is expected to look at the issue as part of its broader examination of policy questions thrown up by the digital revolution in finance.
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Facebook will now show you exactly how it stalks you
By Geoffrey A. Fowler
January 29, 2020 — 10.40am
Ever suspect the Facebook app is listening to you? What we now know is even creepier.
Facebook is giving us a new way to glimpse just how much it knows about us: On Tuesday, the social network made a long-delayed "Off-Facebook Activity" tracker available to its 2 billion members. It shows Facebook and sister apps Instagram and Messenger don't need a microphone to target you with those eerily specific ads and posts - they're all up in your business countless other ways.
Even with Facebook closed on my phone, the social network gets notified when I use the Peet's Coffee app. It knows when I read the website of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg or view articles from The Atlantic. Facebook knows when I click on my Home Depot shopping cart and when I open the Ring app to answer my video doorbell. It uses all this information from my not-on-Facebook, real-world life to shape the messages I see from businesses and politicians alike.
You can see how Facebook is stalking you, too. The "Off-Facebook Activity" tracker will show you 180 days' worth of the data Facebook collects about you from the many organisations and advertisers in cahoots with it. This page, buried behind lots of settings menus, is the product of a promise CEO Mark Zuckerberg made during the height of the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal to provide ways we can "clear the history" in our accounts.
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Bridging health policy and outcomes with data
Stuart Finlayson
Contributor
Contributor
28 January 2020
When it comes to impacting citizens’ day-to-day lives, access to effective healthcare for chronic or traumatic conditions is paramount. Data has the potential to help produce better outcomes for patients but concerns around privacy and security have so far stymied progress.
In Australia, there has been a tendency for citizens to view the government’s handling of personal health records with a degree of mistrust, evidenced by SOTI’s recent survey on Australian’s privacy concerns over health data, coupled by the mass opt out of the My Health Record initiative.
Elsewhere in the world, such as in the UK, there seems to be a greater willingness to share public health information and correlate that health data with other data sets, such as education and socio-economic data, with the help of trusted participants.
Data analysis expert, and founder and CEO of Open Data Australia, Jamie Leach says Australia could benefit greatly from adopting the model like the one SAP used recently in the United States to help a US State government manage an opioid crisis.
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Tech policy needs to be better coordinated: Senate inquiry
Jan 28, 2020 — 12.00am
The chairman of the Senate committee that aims to speed up the use of financial technology recognises that the national narrative around innovation policy must change to ensure that people don’t fear the loss of their jobs.
Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg also understands that Canberra needs to improve policy co-ordination to ensure that skills and capital are attracted to start-ups looking to exert competitive pressure on banks by creating better customer experiences.
“Before you reform something, you have to ensure you have the support of the people, and they think it’s a worthwhile thing to spend the Parliament’s time on,” Mr Bragg said.
The Senate select committee on financial technology and regulatory technology, which he is chairing, has received around 130 submissions and will conduct its first set of public hearings in Melbourne on Thursday, as it prepares to call for new tax and regulatory settings to lift the level of capital going into new companies.
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Bushfires challenge Aussies' need for constant connectivity
Jan 28, 2020 — 12.00am
For Australians across the country confronted by the threat of bushfires, the thing they wanted more than anything, other than rain, was information.
But this fire season has highlighted the perils of taking constant connectivity for granted, confusion and fear has escalated when power goes out and mobile coverage is lost.
Grace McBride, who lives in Mollymook, relied on the Fires Near Me phone app and a battery operated radio to listen to updates from ABC Illawarra, but lost connectivity when fire activity increased.
"You kind of feel like an idiot for not realising it, but you don't realise how crucial power is until you lose it," Ms McBride said.
Ms McBride's particular area on the New South Wales South Coast lost mobile coverage for 24 hours during the peak of the bushfires.
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Minister urges scepticism as fake virus news spreads
By Zoe Samios and Dana McCauley
January 28, 2020 — 7.06pm
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has urged Australians to be sceptical of what they read online as misinformation on the coronavirus outbreak spreads rapidly.
Claims such as where the coronavirus can be caught from, suggestions it was deliberately released and that thousands are dropping dead are forcing social media outlets such as Facebook and Google to ramp up efforts and use third-party fact-checkers to remove misleading information.
“As with the recent bushfire emergency, we are seeing disinformation circulate online in relation to the coronavirus outbreak,” Mr Fletcher said.
“When it comes to the coronavirus, legitimate and authoritative sources online include communications from the Federal Department of Health’s website health.gov.au, state health department websites, the Federal Minister for Health Greg Hunt and his state counterparts, as well as Australia’s many well-known and trusted media organisations.”
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Facebook, Google and Twitter scramble to stop misinformation about coronavirus
Tony Romm
Jan 28, 2020 — 4.31pm
Washington | The rapid spread of the coronavirus in China and around the world has sent Facebook, Google and Twitter scrambling to prevent a different sort of malady - a surge of half-truths and outright falsehoods about the deadly outbreak.
The three Silicon Valley tech giants long have struggled to curtail dangerous health disinformation, including posts, photos and videos that seek to scare people away from much-needed vaccines. But the companies face their great test in the form of a potential pandemic, now that the coronavirus has infected 4400 people in China, killing at least 100, while sickening another five in the United States.
Already, Facebook and its peers have tried to battle back pervasive conspiracy theories, including a hoax that wrongly claims US government officials secretly created or obtained a patent for the illness. Some of the misinformation has circulated through private Facebook groups - channels that are hard for researchers to monitor in real-time - that came into existence after news first broke about the coronavirus.
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Regulation ‘could bolster Big Tech’
The boss of multi-billion-dollar global technology company Slack has warned against “kneejerk” regulation that could entrench the market power of Google and Facebook rather than rein it in, as the US continues to mull fresh antitrust enforcement.
Speaking to The Australian from his company’s San Francisco offices, Canadian billionaire Stewart Butterfield, who co-founded Slack in 2013, said that regulators understood technology better than they used to but still were at risk of unintentionally crippling innovation.
“There’s much more rigorous debate at a policy level and regulators are much more involved than they were,” he said. “I do worry about a knee-jerk reaction that would have unintended consequences, because we’ve seen that many times in the history of tech.”
The entrepreneur cited the EU's GDPR privacy’s laws as an example: the rules were well-intentioned but onerous for small start-ups.
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Axing the fax: What slow-mo Oz could learn from the Kiwis
Antony is a medical reporter with a special interest in technology and pharmacy.
28th January 2020
It’s one hell of a New Year’s resolution — the New Zealand health ministry has committed to exterminating the fax machine by December next year.
Sound familiar? Maybe that’s because, on our side of the ditch, the RACGP and the Australian Digital Health Agency have also urged all doctors to do the same.
Clearly the machines have resisted, stubbornly remaining in the corners of specialists' clinics, hospital offices and pharmacies.
However, the digital health agency says it has made clear progress.
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Australia’s National Digital ID is here, but the government’s not talking about it
January 28, 2020 5.52am AEDT
Author
Research Fellow, Cyber Security, Deakin University
The Australian government’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has spent more than A$200 million over the past five years developing a National Digital ID platform. If successful, the project could streamline commerce, resolve bureaucratic quagmires, and improve national security.
The emerging results of the project may give the Australian public cause for concern.
Two mobile apps built on the DTA’s Trusted Digital Identification Framework (TDIF) have recently been released to consumers. The apps, myGovID and Digital ID, were developed by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and Australia Post, respectively.
Both apps were released without fanfare or glossy marketing campaigns to entice users. This is in keeping with more than five years of stealthy administrative decision-making and policy development in the National Digital ID project.
Now, it seems, we are set to hear more about it. An existing digital identity scheme for businesses called AUSkey will be retired and replaced with the new National Digital ID in March, and the DTA has recently put out a contract for a “Digital Identity Communication and Engagement Strategy”.
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Friday, 24 January 2020 13:17
AI, emerging technologies encroaching on role of managers in workplace
Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies like virtual personal assistants and chatbots are rapidly making headway into the workplace and predicted to replace almost 69% of a manager’s workload.
According to predictions from analyst firm Gartner AI and emerging technologies will “undeniably change” the role of the manager and will allow employees to extend their degree of responsibility and influence, without taking on management tasks - with routine work now done by managers to be fully automated by 2024.
Gartner says that IT executives focused on innovation and AI are now accountable for improving worker experience, developing worker skills and building organisational competency in responsible use of AI.
“The role of manager will see a complete overhaul in the next four years,” said Helen Poitevin, research vice-president at Gartner.
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Video consultations in the aftermath of natural disasters
Mukesh Haikerwal Lena Sanci
THE role of a medical team is critical in all phases of a disaster management response. Beyond the immediate response phase of attending to physical safety with evacuation and stabilisation in severe life-threatening injury, there are needs for increased medical care in the immediate aftermath, particularly from the effects of smoke and other toxic compounds on the respiratory health of firefighters and the public.
The sequelae of exposure to smoke and fine particles (here and here) in smoke are significant and can be readily monitored in many parts of the country now. This monitoring of air quality, the health outcomes of poor air quality and the attendant obligations (here, here and here) are widely accessible.
A need to act has been recognised with the issuing of personal protective masks.
During the recovery phase, routine medical problems also need attention, with provision of adequate medication and monitoring in environments where services are still re-establishing themselves. Mental health effects of exposure to a traumatic event can also become more apparent or sustained for years to come. The health burdens of a disaster event are accentuated in vulnerable populations such as the frail and elderly or the very young; people already unwell, particularly with respiratory, cardiovascular or mental illness; or the immunocompromised. The disease burden will increase as a direct effect of poor air quality. The influx of visitors to some areas in the recovery phase is an increased source of additional potential health care burden.
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Australia lags as the world tries to figure out AI boundaries
There are huge doubts around the ethics and practicalities of artificial intelligence, but experts say Australia must get in the game fast.
Jan 27, 2020 — 10.33am
After decades of providing fiction writers with the ideal conceit to craft tales of armageddon and ethical dilemma, the 2020s might just be the decade we finally see the reality of what artificial intelligence means for the world, and the feeble humans that populate it.
Unless some futuristic hidden project is already secretly roaming among us, we ended the 2010s with AI still in its relative infancy. Not yet full-blown singularity, where the technology has evolved to reason entirely independently, but in a more controlled form where it can take in vast sources of data, learn from it and make many intelligent decisions better than humans.
Its promise is enormous. Corporate champions like Woodside Petroleum chief executive Peter Coleman already credit it with allowing companies to get smarter to the tune of $300 million a year, while a government sponsored road map, published in November, found it could be the basis of a new industry sector worth $315 billion to the Australian economy by 2028.
In medicine, it is often more perceptive than trained specialists in identifying deadly conditions. It is being used in numerous ecological programs, helping farming become more productive, and has the potential to take out the deadly element of human error in driving.
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26 January 2020
100 not out, and still going strong
The Medical Republic is now 100 issues old, and thanks to our clients and readers, is an expanding business, that is not only growing its information service offering to GPs but has expanded into some important specialist vertical content areas, including rheumatology, allergy, immunology and respiratory, as well as digital health.
When we started back in late 2015, we were entering a market that already had two good weekly medical news publications, albeit by then they were both owned by the one company, and there was some speculation back then of how and where The Medical Republic might find a space to live. We knew we had to offer something different.
We settled on a few principles that would form our reason for being. They were to offer good clinical and political coverage, as the other media did, but to put that in the context for doctors of the enormous changes in their professional lives that digital transformation in healthcare was starting to bring. Our purpose was, and continues to be, to help GPs navigate an era where technology is profoundly influencing how doctors do business and is driving fundamental changes in the culture of medical profession.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
