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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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Australian Digital Health Agency Annual Report 2020-21
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‘Focus on the good’: Fresh whistleblower claims Facebook let hate, criminal activity to go unchecked
By Craig Timberg
October 23, 2021 — 11.47am
A new whistleblower affidavit submitted by a former Facebook employee on Friday (Saturday AEDT) alleges that the company prizes growth and profits over combatting hate speech, misinformation and other threats to the public, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Washington Post.
The whistleblower’s allegations, which were declared under penalty of perjury and shared with The Post on the condition of anonymity, echoed many of those made by Frances Haugen, another former Facebook employee whose scathing testimony before Congress this month intensified bipartisan calls for federal action against the company.
Haugen, like the new whistleblower, also made allegations to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees publicly traded companies.
The new whistleblower is a former member of Facebook’s Integrity team whose identity is known to The Post and who agreed to be interviewed about the issues raised in the legal filing. Perhaps the most vivid moment in the affidavit comes in a direct quote the whistleblower reported hearing from a top Facebook communications official during the controversy following Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The whistleblower’s name is redacted in the affidavit.
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https://www.innovationaus.com/facebook-whistleblower-warns-federal-mps/
Facebook whistleblower warns federal MPs
Joseph Brookes
Senior Reporter
22 October 2021
The whistleblower who testified to US congress earlier this month that Facebook is putting “profits before people” has urged Australian politicians to regulate the tech giant because it has even less incentive to clean up its act in the smaller market.
In a briefing organised by Liberal MP Julian Simmonds and digital rights group Reset Australia, former Facebook executive Frances Haugen urged a group of parliamentarians to stop putting faith in Facebook to do the right thing on its own, and urgently develop regulations that would bring genuine oversight to its platforms.
“Stop trusting Facebook,” Ms Haugen told a group of parliamentarians including the Coalition’s Anne Webster and Nola Marino and Labor’s Bill Shorten and Tim Watts.
“The question of democracies being endangered is a real, real question.”
Earlier this month, Ms Haugen told US lawmakers that Facebook’s leadership team knew how to make the company’s platforms safer but was refusing to make the changes because it would harm its “immense profits”.
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New whistleblower accuses Facebook of wrongdoing: report
AFP
October 23, 2021
A former Facebook worker reportedly told US authorities Friday the platform has put profits before stopping problematic content, weeks after another whistleblower helped stoke the firm's latest crisis with similar claims.
The unnamed new whistleblower filed a complaint with US financial regulator Securities and Exchange Commission that could add to the company's woes, said a Washington Post report.
In the SEC complaint, the new whistleblower recounts alleged statements from 2017, when the company was deciding how to handle the controversy related to Russia's interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
The second whistleblower signed the complaint on October 13, a week after Haugen's scathing testimony before a Senate panel, according to the report.
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Rise of the metaverse could put the entire internet into Facebook
By Tim Biggs
October 23, 2021 — 5.00am
The metaverse is not a new idea. But if tech giants end up implementing it as they plan, it could change how we interact with brands, services and each other in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
With reports that Facebook is set to hire 10,000 staff to create its new web paradigm, and that it will soon change its name to reflect that ambition, metaverse is making the jump from tech industry buzzword to a matter of mainstream concern. So, what is it?
The term comes from science fiction author Neal Stephenson, who in 1992 imagined the Metaverse as an evolution of the internet, where virtual reality gave people the ability to explore interconnected digital sites as though they were worlds.
Proto-metaverses already exist in the gaming space. Look at Roblox or Fortnite, where users log into a single virtual space but have access to tools for creation and sharing, are exposed to sponsored brands and advertisements, can enjoy live music festivals and other entertainment, and so on. There’s also Core, an online game designed explicitly to act as a metaverse for interactive experiences, the latest of which is an immersive music installation from artist Deadmau5.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/anz/nepean-hospital-partners-vantari-vr-icu-training
Nepean Hospital partners with Vantari VR for ICU training
They are also working together to craft a procedural training module for airway management.
By Adam Ang
October 18, 2021 11:19 PM
Nepean Hospital, a teaching hospital based in New South Wales, has teamed up with Vantari VR to integrate virtual reality training into its curriculum.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
This partnership will launch and deploy a new virtual training platform over a three-year period. In a press statement, the VR startup said the platform will be integrated into the training curriculum of the hospital's ICU department with a specific focus on central venous catheter insertion.
The partners will also develop a procedural training module to "facilitate a component of airway management in critically ill patients".
WHY IT MATTERS
As Nepean Hospital is managing a heavy case load of COVID-19 patients, the new training platform will help in raising the proficiency of its ICU clinicians and trainees, especially in airway management. This skill has proven to be essential during the pandemic when ICU patients with COVID-19 require intubation.
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Annual report of the Australian Information Commissioner’s activities in relation to digital health 2020–21
Preliminary page
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) was established on 1 November 2010 by the Australian Information Commissioner Act 2010.
ISSN 2202–7262
Creative commons
With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, this Annual report of the Australian Information Commissioner’s activities in relation to digital health 2020–21 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en). This publication should be attributed as:
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Annual report of the Australian Information Commissioner’s activities in relation to digital health 2020–21.
Contact
Enquiries regarding the licence and any use of this report are welcome.
Online:
oaic.gov.au/enquiry
Twitter: @OAICgov
Website: oaic.gov.au
Phone: 1300
363 992
Mail: Director,
Strategic Communications
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner
GPO Box 5218
Sydney NSW 2001
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https://www.miragenews.com/oaic-publishes-annual-report-on-digital-health-656642/
21 Oct 2021 4:58 pm AEDT
OAIC publishes annual report on digital health
The independent privacy regulator for the My Health Record system and Healthcare Identifiers Service has detailed its compliance and monitoring activity in its 2020–21 digital health annual report.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) regulates the privacy provisions contained in the My Health Records Act 2012 and the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010.
Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said the annual report highlights the OAIC’s work to ensure privacy measures for Australia’s digital health systems are upheld.
“Over the past year my office has worked proactively to regulate the protection and security of the personal information at the core of both the My Health Record system and the Healthcare Identifiers Service,” Commissioner Falk said.
….. Key 2020–21 statistics
My Health Record
- Finalised one Commissioner-initiated investigation
- Completed 3 privacy assessments, commenced an additional privacy assessment
- Finalised 7 privacy complaints
- Finalised 2 data breach notifications
- Received 11 enquiries
- Received 7 complaints
- Received 3 data breach notifications
- Finalised one privacy complaint
- Received 2 enquiries
- Received one privacy complaint
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Understanding compliance requirements for accessing My Health Record – practical tips for your practice
These one-hour sessions will equip Practice Managers and administrative staff with a sound knowledge of how to implement and maintain policies and procedures to govern access to the My Health Record within their organisation.
These demonstrations will be run multiple times each week and at varying times throughout the day.
Upon completion participants will be able to:
o Understand the legislative framework for accessing My Health Record
o Create and maintain security and access policies for My Health Record
o Manage My Health Record user accounts and training registers
o Understand the importance of Health Identifiers and correct system configuration
o Designate roles and responsibilities for practice staff engaging with My Health Record
o Understand when and how to access information contained within a consumer’s My Health Record
Thu 25 Nov 2021
When 12:00pm
- 1:00pm,
Thursday 25 November 2021
Where Online
Organiser Australian Digital Health Agency
CPD Points Available? Yes
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Author's Opinion
Thursday, 21 October 2021 09:31
ABC iview user data collected through Google Analytics stored in the US
Any data collected by the ABC through the use of the Google Analytics 360 Suite for its iview service is stored in the US, according to the lone document released to a security researcher who sought details about how such data is used.
As iTWire has reported, Dr Vanessa Teague, who runs the infosec outfit Thinking Cybersecurity, lodged an FOIA request on 16 June, seeking full information on data-sharing agreements signed by the ABC with third parties who have access to iview data, including Google, Facebook and customer data hub and enterprise tag management firm Tealium, and any other firm to whom the broadcaster has granted access.
Her request was knocked back and a request to review the decision was also rejected, the latter on 6 September. However, the ABC released one redacted document, the terms of service issued by the Digital Transformation Agency for the use of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.
According to this document, the service can be used for tracking website traffic and is free for sites that record up to 10 million hits a month. As a Federal Government property, the ABC has to subscribe to the service through the DTA which has a paid subscription.
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https://www.itwire.com/strategy/abc-refuses-request-to-rethink-iview-data-sharing-decision.html
Thursday, 21 October 2021 07:19
ABC refuses request to rethink iview data-sharing decision
An internal review by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of its decision to reject a Freedom of Information request from a security researcher, who sought information on its sharing of data through iview, has upheld the original decision.
The decision was conveyed on 6 September to Dr Vanessa Teague, a researcher who runs the infosec outfit Thinking Cybersecurity, and who lodged an FOIA request on 16 June, seeking full information on data-sharing agreements signed by the ABC with third parties who have access to iview data, including Google, Facebook and customer data hub and enterprise tag management firm Tealium, and any other firm to whom the broadcaster has granted access.
Rejecting the request on 6 September, the ABC said, in part: "Having reviewed your request, I have decided to:
- "Release to you one document, being the DTA [Digital Transformation Agency] Terms of Service, redacted in part;
- "Provide you with additional information relevant to your request, as set out below; and
- "Otherwise affirm the Original Decision that the Identified Documents are not required to be released on the ground that they constitute material communicated in confidence."
Dr Teague was told that the ABC was upholding a decision that it could not divulge details because the arrangements it had with these companies was exempted under section 45 of the FOI Act because disclosure could lead to legal action against it for breach of confidence.
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Wednesday, 20 October 2021 17:25
Govt snubs tech industry, re-introduces cut-down emergency powers bill
In what is a snub to the technology industry at large, the Coalition Government has re-introduced the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Bill 2020 into parliament for a second reading, not long after three major tech industry bodies urged a significant revision of the bill before it is voted on.
But the government has ignored this plea and followed the advice of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security which, on September 30, recommended that the bill be split in order to pass what it characterised as "urgent reforms".
The PJCIS made 14 recommendations about the bill, including that it be split into two parts, saying:
"Bill One for rapid passage – to expand the critical infrastructure sectors covered by the Act, introduce government assistance measures to be used as a last resort in crisis scenarios as well as mandatory reporting obligations; and
"Bill Two for further consultation – including declarations of systems of national significance, enhanced cyber-security obligations and positive security obligations which are to be defined in delegated legislation."
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/covid-experts-plagued-by-abuse/56356
20 October 2021
Covid experts plagued by abuse
Doctors and scientists are being harassed in their homes, receiving death threats and being slandered in online spaces.
Their offence in the court of public opinion? Offering comment on the covid pandemic.
This episode of The Tea Room, TMR’s resident covid blogger and acclaimed science writer Bianca Nogrady shines a light on the dozens of researchers and physicians who have experienced abuse since the beginning of the pandemic.
Her recent research on this topic was originally published in Nature magazine.
You can listen and subscribe to the show by searching for “The Tea Room Medical Republic” in your favourite podcast player.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/home-quarantine-app-raises-privacy-hackles/56353
20 October 2021
Home quarantine app raises privacy hackles
Digital rights groups are pushing for more robust digital privacy regulations as Australia moves into the next phase of the pandemic, warning that regulations around personal data collection are not up to scratch.
The blowback is directed at South Australia’s home quarantine app, which works by contacting people in quarantine at random and requesting proof of their identity and location within 15 minutes.
The app uses facial recognition and smartphone geo-location as verification tools.
Failing a check-in – which happens when the person misses their 15-minute window, is located outside their home or is unable to be recognised by the app AI – prompts a visit from SA police.
NSW, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Victoria are in different stages of rolling out similar apps for home quarantine. Queensland is a notable exception, in that its app uses only geolocation data.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=4d31078e-f0f7-40f6-b57d-7706e1de1e65
Dispelling COVID Myths in the Age of Disinformation
Sydney Criminal Lawyers Paul Gregoire
Australia October 9 2021
The mass of conflicting information circulating online during the pandemic – or “plandemic”, if you prefer – has not only been exhausting for all, but it’s also contributed to a deep division forming in Australian society, which mirrors a similar divide that occurred in the US with the coming of Trump.
Take the prominent assertion that COVID vaccines or their mandating transgresses the Nuremberg Code, which is a post-World War Two guide to prevent involuntary experimental research being conducted on humans, as the Nazi regime had been performing in concentration camps.
The code contains ten ethical principles, which include that medical experimentation on humans must be consensual – via free choice, without coercion – that such research shouldn’t cause death or disability and that scientists must conduct any such tests.
The online rumour is COVID vaccines are experimental, so their use and mandating is against the code. However, COVID vaccines have been officially approved in Australia and overseas on a preliminary basis so, they’re not considered to be ‘experimental’ and the Nuremberg Code cannot apply to them.
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https://www.afr.com/technology/cba-turns-to-ai-to-root-out-abusive-payments-20211009-p58ykg
CBA turns to AI to root out abusive payments
Paul Smith Technology editor
Oct 11, 2021 – 12.00am
Commonwealth Bank of Australia will turn on a new technology system it has developed to use the growing power of artificial intelligence to root out and prevent people using its electronic payments system to send abusive messages.
Since early last year, the bank has been seeking to tackle a problem whereby people depositing funds in another person’s account figured out they could include short messages instead of payment descriptions. These have ranged from harmless jokes to serious cases of the system being used as a targeted form of domestic and family violence.
CBA’s general manager of community and customer vulnerability, Justin Tsuei, said the bank’s AI labs had developed the new system to work alongside the automatic block filter that was implemented last year across its digital banking channels, using machine learning techniques, including capability developed by Google to create a powerful abuse detector.
The scale of the problem is highlighted by the fact that more than 100,000 transactions were blocked by the automatic filter that prevents offensive language being used, over a three-month period, and the new AI model detected 229 unique senders of potentially serious abuse, which were then manually reviewed.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nsw-government-told-to-polish-data-sharing-laws-571481
NSW government told to polish data sharing laws
By Justin Hendry on Oct 20, 2021 6:33AM
Review urges changes to maximise use.
The NSW government must strengthen data sharing laws to make them easier for agencies to navigate, enabling the creation of “high value” datasets, a review has found.
The review of the Data Sharing (Government Sector) Act 2015, tabled in state parliament last week, found that amendments were needed to maximise use of the legislation as a tool for data sharing.
It makes 14 recommendations to update the legislation introduced to reform cross-agency data sharing at a time when data was largely siloed and give the Data Analytics Centre “legislative teeth”.
The review – which took into account five written submissions – found the Act’s policy objectives remain valid, with data sharing and analytics now considered “more important than ever”.
“Linked datasets and data insights derived from them are increasingly viewed as critical government assets and digital infrastructure,” the report from the Department of Customer Service [pdf] said.
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Endeavour to use algorithms, facial recognition to tackle problem gamblers
October 19, 2021 — 5.00am
Australia’s largest drinks and hotels business Endeavour Group has unveiled plans to use predictive algorithms and facial recognition to identify problem gamblers across its network, as part of its broader corporate responsibility and sustainability strategy.
The company, which owns and operates BWS, Dan Murphy’s and around 300 hotels and pubs, has also confirmed it has no intention of opening a new Dan Murphy’s site in Darwin after controversial plans to open a store near a number of dry Indigenous communities was axed earlier this year.
In June, an independent panel advised that Endeavour, which was owned by Woolworths at the time, should not proceed with building the site after it was determined the company had failed to consider the significant negative effects the store would have had on the city’s Aboriginal community and placed profits above all else.
Steve Donohue, Endeavour’s chief executive, told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald a Darwin Dan Murphy’s store was not in consideration, with the business announcing a new community advisory committee would be established in Darwin next year to explore initiatives that would reduce the harm caused by drinking and problem gambling in the community.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/i-was-receiving-1400-tweets-hour-including-death-threats
'I was receiving 1400 tweets an hour, including death threats'
Dr Tanya Selak became the victim of a social media pile-on after she posted on Twitter about mask wearing
18th October 2021
Last month, Dr Tanya Selak became a trending topic on Twitter.
This, as many people know, can be a good thing — a signal that what you have to say is of interest. And sometimes it can be a bad thing.
For Dr Selak, whose original post carried the innocuous title "I’m a vaccinated anaesthetist and this is how I shop for my family", it was very bad.
Among the 1400 tweets an hour she subsequently received were personal abuse and death threats.
An anaesthetist in Wollongong, she said she had been trying to offer the social media world a little education based on the advice of NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant.
Shop only when you need to, wear a mask, sanitise, register on entry and exit, physically distance and shop with purpose to limit time inside, was the message.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/practice/do-you-really-know-effect-youre-having-all-your-patients
Do you really know the effect you're having on all your patients?
Analysing performance, practice trends and patient management is becoming more and more important
31st August 2021
By Associate Professor Chris Pearce
Delivering effective care is a complex task, but broadly speaking there are two new things you need to understand.
First, you need insight into the care of the practice population, not just individual patients.
Second, you need insight into the ways individual GPs, and the practice as a whole, contribute to providing that care.
In days gone by, that was hard to do, but with the rise of digital exploration tools that analyse what is happening to patients and practice trends, the obstacles are being overcome.
These tools are growing in number. They include programs such as POLAR, the extraction tool my company, Outcome Health, has developed, but there are others such as Doctors Control Panel, Pen CS and MedicineInsight.
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Zuckerberg’s Facebook the digital Frankenstein feeding on hate, rage
11:00PM October 17, 2021
Like Dr Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, Mark Zuckerberg has created a monster he cannot control. The recent revelations of The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files and testimony before US congress of product manager turned whistleblower Frances Haugen, appear to have removed any doubt regarding the extent of Facebook’s unwieldy problems, and the lack of willingness on behalf of its leadership to deal with them.
Zuckerberg is the largest shareholder, chief executive and president of Facebook. Yet the most recent revelations about the failures of his company suggest he has lost control of the product he created in a dorm room 17 years ago. Despite being a trillion-dollar company, whistleblowers and investigative journalists have exposed how Facebook is unable to prevent people being bought and sold as slaves on its platform, or prevent people from selling subplots of the Amazon rainforest to land speculators. Facebook’s executives have even been unable to stop the platform from being used to incite genocide, as it was in Myanmar in 2018.
But what is it about Facebook’s platform that makes it so monstrous? On the face of it its mission sounds innocuous. “Facebook was built to bring people closer together and build relationships,” Zuckerberg has written in a company mission statement. How could such a mission turn awry? Isn’t bringing people “closer together” an unalloyed good?
In theory, yes. But in reality, what Facebook and its algorithms do is catalyse sectarian divisions by bolstering in-group identity while promoting out-group hate. Nothing brings people “closer together” than hating a common enemy. And, importantly, this is not a process that impugns any particular side of the political spectrum. As each side is brought “closer together”, the further they pull away from each other. In the US context, social media propels the Black Lives Matter and transgender activist movements on the left and the Stop the Steal and anti-vaccination movements on the right. What these movements have in common is that they all rely on tribal solidarity animated by social grievance.
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Monday, 18 October 2021 00:52
Cyber security experts say Australia ransomware action plan falls short
The Federal Government has released its ransomware action plan, but cyber security experts Claroty and Varonis say it falls short and needs greater commitment from the government.
Scott Leach, vice president of sales, Varonis Asia Pacific (APAC) said, “any time the Federal Government recognises the increasing risk ransomware poses to Australian organisations is a positive. However, there is still room for improvement in today’s Ransomware Action Plan. There are a number of actionable steps that the government could have included, with the aim of improving compliance in a range of industries. For example, the government could issue directives that encourage organisations to introduce a range of positive cyber security measures by a particular date, such as a Zero Trust approach and a strict policy of least privilege, which means employees are only given access to the files necessary to do their jobs.”
"These directives would have a significant and immediate impact on the organisations who adopt them. Restricting access to an organisation’s most sensitive files ensures that if a data breach ever does occur, the risk of attackers stealing these sensitive files and moving laterally throughout the network is significantly reduced. With little or no access to sensitive files, ransomware is significantly less effective, saving organisations thousands of dollars (if not millions in some cases) and taking the power away from hackers.”
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David.
