by Juanita Fernando

MEDIA RELEASE: Every 3 minutes Australian health services collect 400 data points of up to 25m patients’ medical records

Primary Health Networks (PHNs) have been collecting 400 data points of up to 25 million Australian patient health records since August 2019. The records are apparently deidentified, but as science has long demonstrated, can be later identified so that criminal agents may collect 400 pieces of information about you from this information. Your General Practice asks for your consent to do this by bundling the authority into imprecise packages of tick-box styled general statements. By consenting to be treated by your usual doctor, patients also consent to link information from their confidential medical consult to information stored by health authorities. Read More

by Katharine Kemp

ACCC ‘world first’: Australia’s Federal Court found Google misled users about personal location data

The Federal Court has found Google misled some users about personal location data collected through Android devices for two years, from January 2017 to December 2018. Other companies too should be warned that representations in their privacy policies and privacy settings could lead to similar liability under the ACL. But this won’t be a complete solution to the problem of many companies concealing what they do with data, including the way they share consumers’ personal information. Read More

by Jeannie Marie Paterson

Privacy erosion by design: why the Federal Court should throw the book at Google over location data tracking

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has had a significant win against Google. The Federal Court found Google misled some Android users about how to disable personal location tracking. Will this decision actually change the behaviour of the big tech companies? The answer will depend on the size of the penalty awarded in response to the misconduct. Read More

by Luci Pangrazio

Apps that help parents protect kids from cybercrime may be unsafe too

Many parents are concerned about children’s screen time, cybersafety and internet addiction. An increasingly popular technical solution is parental control apps. But such a quick fix is inadequate when addressing the complicated reasons behind screen time. Much worse though, the apps expose users to privacy and other safety issues most people aren’t aware of. Read More

by Deborah Lupton

“Sharing Is Caring:” Australian Self-Trackers’ Concepts and Practices of Personal Data Sharing and Privacy

Self-tracking technologies and practices offer ways of generating vast reams of personal details, raising questions about how these data are revealed or exposed to others. This article reports on findings from an interview-based study of long-term Australian self-trackers who were collecting and reviewing personal information about their bodies and other aspects of their everyday lives. Most participants did not consider the possibilities that their personal information could be distributed well-beyond these relationships by third parties for commercial purposes (or what has been termed “institutional privacy”). The findings of this study also highlight the relational and social dimensions of self-tracking and concepts of data privacy. Read More

by Liam Pomfret

Public Seminar to mark International Data Privacy Day 2021 (January 28th)

International Data Privacy Day this year will mark the 40th Anniversary of Data Protection Convention 108 (recently “modernised” as Convention 108+). To celebrate this event, the Council of Europe will be hosting a 90 minute Asia-Pacific virtual regional seminar on January 28th, featuring a range of speakers from Asia-Pacific civil society, governmental bodies, and privacy regulators, and civil society, including the Australian Privacy Foundation’s own Professor Graham Greenleaf. Read More