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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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Scott Morrison says social media platforms are publishers if unwilling to identify users
Morrison, Joyce, and Cash all on Thursday called out the tech giants for the content that resides on social media platforms.
By Campbell Kwan | October 7, 2021 | Topic: Social Enterprise
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has criticised tech giants for the conduct that occurs on their platforms, stating that platforms would be viewed as publishers if they are unwilling to identify users that post foul and offensive content.
"Social media has become a coward's palace where people can just go on there, not say who they are, destroy people's lives, and say the most foul and offensive things to people, and do so with impunity," Morrison said at a press conference.
"The companies that [do not] say who they are, well, they're not a platform anymore. They're a publisher, and you know what the implications of that means in terms of those issues. So people should be responsible for what they say in a country that believes in free speech."
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Society could unfriend Facebook as its reputation takes a battering Facebook
By Economist
3:13PM October 8, 2021
Disaster struck the world’s biggest social network on October 4th when Facebook and its sister apps were knocked offline for six hours. It was one of the less embarrassing moments of the company’s week. The next day a whistleblower, Frances Haugen, told Congress of all manner of wickedness at the firm, from promoting eating disorders to endangering democracy. Some wondered whether the world would be a better place if the outage were permanent.
A share of the opprobrium heaped on Facebook is incoherent. Politicians are angry but so far seem incapable of co-ordinating reform to rein it in. And investors have kept buying the stock, regardless of the bad headlines. Yet the company should take no comfort from this. The blind fury unleashed shows that its reputational problems have got out of hand.
Some of this week’s criticism was tendentious. Reports highlighted internal research showing that Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing app, makes one in five American teenagers feel worse about themselves. They paid less attention to the finding that Instagram makes twice as many feel better about themselves. Facebook’s critics are right that it should be more open. But the firm has half a point when it says that the hysterical reaction to unsurprising findings will lead companies to conclude that it is safer not to do such research at all.
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Dossiers and cover-ups: Facebook puts profits before safety, whistleblower reveals
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons and Lisa Visentin
October 9, 2021 — 5.00am
When Sydney teenager Tilda first started using Instagram, it sparked a crisis of confidence in how she looked that lasted two years.
“I would constantly compare myself to Victoria’s Secret models when I was a 12-year-old girl with a flat chest,” Tilda says. “I was faced with these images of girls who are fully grown, and have probably had some work done - it was challenging, but it’s also what’s to be expected when you’re a 12-year-old who goes on Instagram with no real idea of reality or expectation of what social media is like.”
With the support of her mother, Tilda eventually gained the perspective and maturity to move past this. Now 15, she uses Instagram mainly to follow Liverpool Football Club and message friends, TikTok for the humour and SnapChat to connect with friends. She no longer worries “about what other girls look like or if they have a smaller waist than I do or bigger lips or whatever.”
Tilda was officially too young when she joined Instagram - the terms and conditions state users must be at least 13 - but this is common. As we now know, thanks to damning testimony from a whistleblower in the US, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, Instagram is not safe for young people aged 13 and older anyway.
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Australia urges US to follow its lead in regulating social media giants
By Lisa Visentin and Caitlin Fitzsimmons
October 9, 2021 — 5.00am
Australia has intervened in the global push to regulate tech giants, writing to the US Senate to urge it to follow the nation’s lead to make social media companies deliver safer products.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has drawn global media coverage and ignited a bipartisan push in the US congress to rein in the tech giants, after testifying this week that the company knowingly harms its users and prioritises profit, stokes division, and undermines democracy.
In a letter to the chairs of the Senate hearings this week, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the issues the US committees were grappling with “are ones of truly global impact”, adding that Australia’s “leading regulatory approach” had been internationally recognised.
The letter included an offer for Ms Inman Grant to give evidence to the committees on Australia’s actions, noting that the World Economic Forum in June had recommended that other nations should consider forming a body specific to online safety, “such as Australia’s eSafety Commissioner”.
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How Barnaby Joyce sent the ‘fear of God’ through Big Tech
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor
October 9, 2021 — 5.00am
Here’s a puzzle. On Wednesday, the Minister for Communications, Paul Fletcher, appeared at the National Press Club in Canberra. He took the national media spotlight to talk about his new booklet, Governing in the Age of the Internet. It’s a vast and urgent problem. But he had nothing new to say on the topic.
Fletcher didn’t so much as utter the words “social media” in his speech. Yet on Thursday, the very next day, Prime Minister Scott Morrison made news on Fletcher’s chosen topic when he damned the big social media companies that Fletcher is supposed to be in charge of regulating:
“Social media has become a coward’s palace where people can just go on there, not say who they are, destroy people’s lives and say the most foul and offensive things,” Morrison said at a press conference, signalling a crackdown. This made news not only in Australia but around the world. The global newsagency Reuters made it their “quote of the day”.
Morrison went further. It was “not a free country” where people could destroy lives with impunity. “So people should be responsible for what they say, in a country that believes in free speech. I think that’s very important … we intend to set the pace because we value our free society and in a free society, you can’t be a coward and attack people and expect not to be held accountable for it.”
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QR codes turn analog interactions into digital ones, stirring privacy fears
By Tatum Hunter
October 8, 2021 — 7.00am
Your favourite server at your local pizza spot may remember you love anchovies. Now, thanks in part to the QR code you used to open the menu and order, other eateries might know, too.
These tiny black-and-white squares originated in factories in the 1990s and have seen a resurgence during the pandemic, as more people took extra steps to keep their hands clean and touchless technologies gained ground at restaurants and retailers.
Just open a phone camera, point it at this special type of link and get transported to a website with more information than a paper menu ever offered. Even classically brick-and-mortar businesses like furniture retailers are using QR, or quick response, codes to help shoppers choose what to buy.
But QR codes serve a purpose beyond cutting down on germs. They turn analog interactions - like ordering a pizza - into digital ones, and those digital interactions can be subject to tracking by the restaurant or store. Because QR codes open a browser, companies might use that digital signal to connect the dots between online and offline activity.
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https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/what-is-facebook-doing-to-us-20211008-p58yb1.html
What is Facebook doing to us?
By Shira Ovide
October 8, 2021 — 9.35am
In Facebook’s major scandals of the last five years, some of the scary details or breathless conclusions have been off base. But each one has moved us closer to essential truths about how Facebook affects our lives.
In 2016, the worst fears were that a wildfire of Russian propaganda on Facebook persuaded a bunch of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. In 2018, people spun yarns that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica brainwashed us with data they vacuumed up from Facebook users. Not quite right.
In the firestorms, there may have been too much credit given to the Kremlin, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook — and too little to human free will.
And in Facebook’s crisis du jour, kicked off by a whistleblower’s claims that the company repeatedly chose its short-term corporate interests over the good of humanity, some nuance has likely been lost. Instagram’s internal research about the app’s influence on teenage girls’ mental health does not appear conclusive, as some researchers told me and NPR reported.
So yes, we have all gotten stuff wrong about Facebook. The company, the public and people in power have at times oversimplified, sensationalised, misdiagnosed the problems or botched the solutions. We focused on how the heck Facebook allowed Macedonian teenagers to grab Americans’ attention with fabricated news and did less to address why so many people believed it.
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'A coward's palace': PM slams social media amid defamation law controversy
By Byron Kaye on Oct 8, 2021 6:50AM
Pushes for platforms to be treated as publishers where identity is unknown.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison lambasted social media on Thursday as "a coward's palace", saying platforms should be treated as publishers when defamatory comments by unidentified people are posted, pouring fuel on a raging debate over the country's libel laws.
Morrison's comments suggest he would favour making companies like Facebook liable for defamation with regards to some content posted by third parties, a position that could further cement Australia's outlier status on the subject.
The country's highest court ruled last month that publishers can be held liable for public comments on online forums, a judgement that has pitted Facebook and news organisations against each other and spread alarm among all sectors that engage with the public via social media.
That in turn has lent new urgency to an ongoing review of Australia's defamation laws, with the federal attorney general this week writing to state counterparts stressing the importance of tackling the issue.
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Seniors Festival - My Digital Health Information Session
ADHA Propaganda
Join
us for an information session about My Health Record – an online database that
stores your important health information.
This online session will cover what My Health Record is used for, what its
benefits are, and what documents are stored in the database.
We will also look at who has access to your health information and how you can
access it for yourself.
There will be an opportunity to ask questions.
The session will be presented by the Australian Digital Health Agency and the
Australian Library and Information Association.
Registration
Registrations
are required for this event.
Select the 'Register now' button below or telephone the library during opening
hours on 1300 630 920.
Registrations will close 9am on the day of the event unless fully booked.
Location
This
program will be delivered online via Zoom.
This is a live streamed event accessed via a link, which you will receive on
the day of the event.
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‘Pay the price’: Tech giants could face legal responsibility for trolls
October 8, 2021 — 5.00am
Tech giants could be held legally responsible for the content published on their platforms after Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his deputy Barnaby Joyce launched extraordinary attacks on social media companies.
Facebook is already under fire globally after an American whistleblower leaked documents accusing the company of knowingly harming users, with Assistant Minister for Mental Health David Coleman declaring “social media platforms can’t be trusted to act in the best interests of children”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison indicated support for defamation reform that could hold platforms legally liable for the comments of anonymous users.
“Social media has become a coward’s palace, where people can just go on there, not say who they are, destroy people’s lives and say the most foul and offensive things to people, and do so with impunity. Now that’s not a free country where that happens,” Mr Morrison said on Thursday.
“That issue, and the technology that enables it, and the lack of accountability that sits around it, is just not on. You can expect us to be leaning even further into this.”
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https://www.afr.com/technology/it-is-time-to-imagine-a-post-facebook-world-20211007-p58xxo
It is time to imagine a post-Facebook world
A huge market opportunity has opened up to build a social media platform that prioritises users rather than advertisers.
John Thornhill
Oct 7, 2021 – 10.18am
It goes against the unwritten rules of the columnists’ guild to admit that there are some complex problems that defy simple solutions. But dealing with the toxic exhausts from Facebook’s social networks counts as one.
With 2.8 billion users, accounting for about 60 per cent of the world’s internet-connected population, the company has arguably become too big to run, let alone regulate. Yet, a mass of messy, half-measures can still help push social media in a better direction.
The damning testimony to the US Senate this week of Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager, provided further evidence that the company is damaging society and society needs to respond. “I believe Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy,” she told the hearing.
In spite of Facebook’s attempts to trash her credibility, Haugen made a powerful case. A computer scientist by training, she has worked at Facebook, Google, Pinterest and Yelp since 2006, and had access to reams of internal Facebook research, which she leaked to The Wall Street Journal.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/vaccine-proof-is-under-way-but-dont-call-it-a-passport/
7 October 2021
Vaccine proof is under way – but don’t call it a passport
COVID-19 Government Interoperability
Australia is now at the rollout stage for one of the biggest digital challenges in the pandemic – providing proof of vaccination for some 20 million residents – and we’re nailing it, according to Medical Software Industry Association CEO Emma Hossack.
“There has been unprecedented co-operation between various government authorities and the software industry throughout the pandemic,” she said.
The Australian Immunisation Register Amendment (Reporting) Act 2021, which came into force in March, means that, by law, a record of every covid vaccination must be uploaded to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).
“This
makes the AIR a source of truth for every Australian,” said Ms Hossack.
Behind the scenes, medical software providers ranging from GP practice software
to state-wide health systems and community pharmacy programs, have all linked
new covid data collection capabilities to the AIR, with a free app from the
Australian Digital Health Agency handling data from vaccination providers
without existing clinical software.
Ms Hossack said the approach was designed to ensure that getting (and
recording) a covid vaccine was straightforward and no one fell through the
gaps.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/the-emerging-potential-of-balancing-system-load-with-virtual-services/
23 September 2021
The emerging potential of “balancing system load” with virtual services
Cloud Government Hospital Telehealth
Telehealth and smart virtual services that are starting to aggregate around it offer us significant new opportunities to manage healthcare budgets more efficiently, while maintaining and sometimes even improving access and safety.
Large electricity stations are the most capital intensive investments for state governments and up to four times the cost of large new city based hospitals, so it’s not surprising that the economics of electricity generation has some firmly established fundamentals which enshrine a lot of efficiency in resource allocation and sharing.
The most fundamental concept in affording electricity generation (until now – things are changing because of coal) is base load versus peak load supply integration, something that deals with the biggest system issue in generation, a substantive 24 hour cycle of peaks and troughs in demand.
Big, usually coal fired, base load power stations handle about 80% of all generation at a very low relative cost per kilowatt generated, but running them for that final 20% to meet the peak loads which only last for 2-3 hours at a time during a day is vastly expensive. So, we have smaller agile peak load stations (often gas, now more and more renewables) which fire up quickly during the day to deal with these peaks.
With Australia embracing telehealth at scale by deciding to rebate it on the MBS, we’ve introduced to our healthcare system something of the potential of the economics of load balancing in power generation.
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Thursday, 07 October 2021 10:27
Fletcher slams big tech firms for resisting attempts at regulation
Big technology companies have come in for criticism by Communications Minister Paul Fletcher for resisting attempts by the Australian Government to create regulations to keep them in line.
Answering questions after a speech, made virtually to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Fletcher said recent reports about Facebook luring youth towards damaging content were a reminder that such companies needed to be regulated.
A former Facebook employee named Frances Haugen appeared before the US Congress this week outlining ways in which Facebook and Instagram were posing a danger to young users.
She had leaked a number of documents to the Wall Street Journal weeks ago, based on which the newspaper published a number of articles that were damaging to the social media site.
Said Fletcher: “What we’ve seen over the past few days in the statements from the Facebook whistleblower, in the US Congressional hearing and in associated media coverage, is a reminder of the significance of these issues.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/urgent-govt-digital-capability-review-still-not-finalised-570870
'Urgent' govt digital capability review still not finalised
By Justin Hendry on Oct 7, 2021 6:49AM
Almost two years after Thodey review.
A comprehensive audit of federal government IT and digital capability deemed “urgent” almost two years ago is still yet to be finalised, the Digital Transformation Agency has revealed.
The audit was announced in response to David Thodey’s root-and-branch review of the Australian Public Service in December 2019 to understand IT spending, as well as “capability, risks and needs”.
Thodey’s review found “no detailed inventory of systems… nor of associated risks, costs and upgrade needs” across government, resulting in “limited knowledge and understanding about the overall state of ICT”.
It said that the audit could be completed within six months of being commissioned to enable “prompt development of an ICT blueprint ” that would be used to understand where to focus investment.
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Online workshop: Introduction to My Health Record
Next date: Friday, 08 October 2021 | 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM ADHA Propaganda
Recommended for adult audiences.
Are you overwhelmed by the Digital world of health care? Would you like to learn more about My Health Record?
My Health Record can store all your health information in one place with any access to that information remaining in your control. Mornington Peninsula Libraries can teach you how during this workshop.
Join us online via Zoom for an information session about My Health Record, Australia’s national digital health record system. Learn how to manage your own health information online and where to access health and well-being resources through the library.
Free, but bookings essential.
Note: If you can't make it on the day, please let us know, so that your tickets can be freed up for others to attend
When
· Friday, 08 October 2021 | 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Location
Online
event via Zoom.
We will send you a link closer to the day
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ADHA 2020-21 Corporate Plan
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Opinion: How precision oncology is transforming patient care
By Professor David Thomas, Director of the Kinghorn Cancer Centre and Lab Head
of Genomic Cancer Medicine at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Australia
Thursday, 30 September, 2021
Cancer is fundamentally a genetic disease, driven by mutations that drive cancer growth. Just as each person is genetically unique, so the genomic profile of no two cancers is the same.
Precision oncology uses knowledge of the genomic profile of each patient’s cancer to guide accurate and personalised therapy. Rapid developments in two related fields have enabled precision oncology. First, the robust and affordable access to genomic tools in the clinic. Second, the development of biomarker-dependent drugs that can exploit the genomic vulnerabilities identified.
The effects of these innovations are transformative.
Patients may be able to avoid treatment that is unlikely to work, and have an increased likelihood of more effective treatment, which has the potential to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes.
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Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony builds momentum for tougher tech laws
By John Mckinnon and Ryan Tracy
Dow Jones
October 6, 2021
Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen testified to Congress Tuesday on internal documents showing harms from the company’s products — from teenagers’ mental-health problems to poisoned political debates — adding fuel to efforts to pass tougher regulations on Big Tech.
The documents gathered by Ms Haugen, which provided the foundation for The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series, show how the company’s moderation rules favour elites; how its algorithms foster discord; and how drug cartels and human traffickers use its services openly.
“I saw Facebook repeatedly encounter conflicts between its own profit and our safety. Facebook consistently resolved these conflicts in favour of its own profits,” Ms Haugen told a Senate consumer protection subcommittee. “As long as Facebook is operating in the shadows, hiding its research from public scrutiny, it is unaccountable. Until the incentives change, Facebook will not change.”
Republican and Democratic politicians at the hearing renewed their calls for regulation, such as strengthening privacy and competition laws and special online protections for children, as well as toughening of the platforms’ accountability. One idea that got a particular boost was requiring more visibility into social-media data as well as the algorithms that shape users’ experiences.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-lowers-barriers-to-consumer-data-right-participation-570804
Govt lowers barriers to consumer data right participation
By Justin Hendry on Oct 5, 2021 6:06PM
Amends rules, introduces new sponsorship models for data access.
The federal government has removed a significant barrier to participation in the consumer data right scheme, with new levels of accreditation to become available to businesses wanting to ingest data.
The additional pathways, which are aimed at encouraging greater uptake and were first flagged by Treasury in May, are contained in changes to the rules made on Tuesday.
Until now, only accredited data recipients (ADRs) have been able to receive consumers' data from a data holder and make use of it in their own products or services.
But accreditation has been slow, with only 18 businesses able to call themselves ADRs to date, including the Regional Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank and, more recently, NAB.
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‘I was afraid I was going to die’: Misinformation fuels vaccine hesitancy
October 5, 2021 — 5.00am
Margaret Thanos was so overwhelmed by what she had read online about whether it was safe for young people her age to get the AstraZeneca vaccine she found herself sobbing outside the chemist on the day of her injection.
“The fear from what I had heard and online misinformation meant I was afraid I was going to die even though statistically it’s so unlikely,” says Ms Thanos, a 21-year-old artist, who is now fully vaccinated.
COVID-19 is regarded as the first pandemic of the social media age, according to a global report by girls’ equality charity Plan International, which surveyed more than 26,000 girls and young women from 26 countries and found false information was severely impacting their lives.
In Australia, 95 per cent of the 1001 girls and young women surveyed said they were concerned about misinformation or disinformation online, while 83 per cent said they had been exposed to false or misleading information. (While misinformation and disinformation both refer to wrong or false information, only disinformation is deliberately misleading.)
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Hasta la vista, baby! Australia not dealing with AI threat
John Davidson Columnist
Oct 5, 2021 – 5.00am
Fewer than one in 10 Australian companies using artificial intelligence as part of their business have taken the steps required to ensure the technology is used responsibly and without gender or race bias, a new study shows.
The The Responsible AI Index 2021 study, which analysed the practices of hundreds of Australian businesses using AI for applications ranging from manufacturing to financial services, found only 8 per cent of companies took a “mature” approach to AI ethics, meaning they had a strong focus on the moral and ethical issues raised by AI, and had auditing processes in place to ensure their AI was socially responsible.
But, on average, Australian companies lacked confidence, understanding and leadership when it came to the dangers of AI, the study found.
Numerous tech leaders, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, have warned about the grave dangers posed by AI, especially if it is allowed to work on its own self-improvement, creating a virtuous circle in which its ability to self-improve improves with each iteration.
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ADHA
Propaganda
My Health Record
What is My Health Record?
My Health Record is an online summary of your key health information. When you have a My Health Record, your health information can be viewed securely online, from anywhere at any time and it includes information such as:
- Allergies
- Medical conditions
- Treatments
- Medicines
- Test and scan results (such as blood tests and x-rays).
Perth Children’s Hospital contributes to Australia’s My Health Record system and is currently uploading information from five clinical applications:
- Patient Administration System (webPAS)
- Notifications and Clinical Summaries (NaCS)
- iSoft Clinical Manager (iCM)
- eReferral
- Allergy and Dietary Advice (ADA).
These applications upload:
- discharge summaries
- shared health summaries
- specialist letters
- event summaries
- prescription and dispensary records
- pathology results
- diagnostic imaging reports
- referral information for consumers.
For a list of benefits of having a My Health Record, please refer to the My Health Record website.
If you have a My Health Record these documents will be automatically uploaded, if you do not want this to occur you need to inform us at every attendance. Please ask us for a Change of Consent to Upload Documents to My Health Record form.
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Tech industry hits back at eSafety code plans
October 4, 2021
Industry groups and academics have hit back at the eSafety Commissioner’s plans for codes to tackle child sex abuse and other adult materials, which they say is overly broad and could potentially weaken Australia’s cyber security defences and cripple encryption.
The Australian first revealed last week that tech giants Facebook and Twitter and other providers including search engines, dating apps, private messaging services and device manufacturers have been asked to draft new codes, which will operate under Australia’s Online Safety Act.
The codes are expected to include solutions to be deployed across pornographic sites and social media platforms including proactive human and machine monitoring, account suspensions, de-indexing of search results, and the use of forms of age assurance or parental controls.
John Stanton, the chief executive of Communications Alliance which represents telcos including Telstra, Optus and TPG, said that while he‘s still digesting the 200-page report, the requirements to constantly monitor messaging may not be workable.
“So far it appears that the breadth of the sectoral definitions may not marry well with all of the Commissioner’s expectations, for example to proactively monitor or remove content where services such as SMS, MMS or email are concerned,” he said.
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Minister reveals how to avoid ‘parasitic’ consultants
Edmund Tadros Professional services editor
Oct 3, 2021 – 6.08pm
The minister behind the successful Service NSW mobile app says government departments and agencies need to have enough internal experts to ensure they have productive, as opposed to “parasitic”, relationships with external consultants.
NSW Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello, who presides over a department that has roughly 900 public servants in technology-based roles, said having in-house skills had allowed him to constantly release updates to the Services NSW app.
The app’s “check-in” function has allowed contract tracers in NSW to track COVID-19 infections during the pandemic, with the app updated last week with a new feature that alerts users when they have been to an exposure site.
“It’s absolutely essential in an age that is dominated by pace and agility that governments build their own internal capability that can partner with and collaborate with external partners to develop new products and services,” he said. “You need a critical mass of human capital so that you can build that furnace of capability.”
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David.
