Jake Goldenfein, Swinburne University of Technology Australian police agencies are reportedly using a private, unaccountable facial recognition service that combines machine learning and wide-ranging data-gathering practices to identify members of the public from online photographs. The service, Clearview AI, is like a reverse image search for faces. You upload an image of someone’s face and… Read More

Dr Patrick Scolyer-Gray, 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… Read More

Katharine Kemp, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UNSW, and Co-Leader, ‘Data as a Source of Market Power’ Research Stream of The Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation, UNSW and Rob Nicholls, Senior lecturer in Business Law. Director of the UNSW Business School Cybersecurity and Data Governance Research Network, UNSW Today, the federal government responded… Read More

Katharine Kemp, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UNSW, and Co-Leader, ‘Data as a Source of Market Power’ Research Stream of The Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation, UNSW Australia’s consumer watchdog has recommended major changes to our consumer protection and privacy laws. If these reforms are adopted, consumers will have much more say about… Read More

Monique Mann, Queensland University of Technology The Australian government has released a draft of its long awaited bill to provide law enforcement and security agencies with new powers to respond to the challenges posed by encryption. According to the Department of Home Affairs, encryption already impacts 90% of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s (ASIO) priority cases,… Read More

Katharine Kemp, UNSW; Bruce Baer Arnold, University of Canberra, and David Vaile, UNSW Unless you take action to remove yourself from the My Health Record (MHR) system, the federal government will make a digital copy of your medical record, store it centrally, and, as the default, provide numerous people with access to it. If you… Read More

Sacha Molitorisz, University of Technology Sydney Facebook announced last week it would discontinue the partner programs that allow advertisers to use third-party data from companies such as Acxiom, Experian and Quantium to target users. Graham Mudd, Facebook’s product marketing director, said in a statement: We want to let advertisers know that we will be shutting… Read More

David Glance, University of Western Australia The London-based data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica has been accused of using illegally gathered information from more than 50 million Facebook users to support Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign. Facebook has suspended the accounts of the firm along with Cambridge University academic Aleksandr Kogan and consultant-turned-whistle-blower Christopher Wylie, who… Read More

David Vaile, UNSW As revelations continue to unfold about the misuse of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, many Australians are only just learning that Australian politicians have given themselves a free kick to bypass privacy laws. Indeed, Australian data privacy laws are generally weak when compared with those in the United States, the United Kingdom… Read More

Jake Goldenfein, Swinburne University of Technology A Bill to set up the federal government’s biometric identity system is currently going through Parliament. But there are concerns over just how much information the system would be allowed to gather, and how that might be used to establish more than just the identity of a person. Strongly… Read More