The Australian Government’s intention to pursue new and increased powers to access encrypted communications via statutorily required ‘backdoors’ has been met with wide-ranging privacy and information security concerns.
On 5 October 2017, a panel of encryption experts, international privacy law experts, academics, politicians, digital rights advocates, and journalists will unpack the social and technical consequences of the proposed new ‘backdooring’ powers. Read More

This week ID information from the financial records of over 120 million people in the United States was hacked – the latest reminder that IT security failure is a global epidemic. Health records are just as valuable to hackers. The current system for storing and using health records in Australia is hopelessly deficient. But with lousy data security, and a world where data breaches are a daily event, the Australian Government’s reluctance to fix this problem is looking negligent! Read More

Privacy storms have increased in frequency and intensity, and it’s getting worse.
“Privacy underpins people’s lives. It’s not going away. Technology continues to heap threats on it. Organisations keep on blindly applying those technologies. People are getting fed up with these things. It’s increasingly costing business money, and government agencies trust”. Read More

Today, 83 organisations and individuals from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA sent letters to their respective governments insisting that government officials defend strong encryption. The letter comes on the heels of a meeting of the “Five Eyes” ministerial meeting in Ottawa, Canada earlier this week. Read More

The catch-cry that Zuckerberg used to justify his end-run around privacy protections was ‘the default is social’.
During the last few years, Australian business has been lobbying for the economic potential of all data to be unlocked, not just social media data.
That requires that the already-weak privacy protections be dismantled, to implement the business catch-cry of ‘the default is economic exploitation’.
The chosen vehicle for empowering business is the Productivity Commission. Read More

The Australian Privacy Foundation (APF) turns 30 in July 2017.
APF, the oldest privacy advocacy body in the world, is delighted to welcome the youngest.
The Privacy Foundation of New Zealand (PFNZ) launched on Monday 8 May 2017.
PFNZ comprises a body of professionals who have individually made substantial contributions to privacy protection. The organisation has declared as its mission: independent, informed and fair public comment on privacy Read More

The Australian Government is legislating to use your personal information to silence any dissent to its policies. It will be starting with veterans’ information if it passes the Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016 (Cth).
Australian citizen have to deal with the national government. The young, old, unemployed, disabled or those who have served this country in the defence forces must provide their personal information to one or more government agencies. There is no choice: no information means no entitlements. If done properly it is a good thing and should harm no one. But it has to be done properly. Read More

Your privacy is being eroded by Big Brother and Big Sister day by day.
The Australian Privacy Foundation – the nation’s civil society privacy body – commends moves in Queensland and Tasmania to introduce human rights legislation.
The Foundation says, however, that the legislation in those states and the Commonwealth needs to have teeth if it is to meaningfully protect the privacy and other rights of all Australians. Read More

The judgment of the Federal Court of Australia, in Privacy Commissioner v Telstra Corporation Pty Ltd, that key metadata is not “personal information” is “disastrous for ordinary Australians and misunderstands how a digital footprint identifies person”, the Australian Privacy Foundation said today.
This decision will severely impair the Privacy Commissioner in regulating privacy on line. Read More

The Full Bench of the Federal Court of Australia will hand down its judgment tomorrow in the decision Privacy Commissioner v Telstra Corporation Pty Ltd
The details are as follows:
Date: 19 January 2017.
Venue: Court 8C (Level 8) Commonwealth Law Courts, 305 William Street, Melbourne, 3000
Time: 9 am Read More