Trust in federal government departments’ handling of personal information declining, survey finds Thursday September 24, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Community & Social Trust in personal information handling by federal government departments has gone down by 14% since 2007, while trust in companies in general has declined by… Read more
New resource helps agencies know when to conduct privacy-impact assessments Monday September 14, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Federal The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has launched a new resource to help federal government agencies determine when they should conduct a privacy-impact… Read more
Teenager allegedly behind WA Health breach Wednesday July 22, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Communications & Technology The website that published sensitive messages sent between staff from the Western Australian Department of Health was run by a teenager. Read more
Aus, UK privacy commissioners investigating facial recognition company Friday July 10, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Communications & Technology The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has joined forces with its UK counterpart to investigate facial recognition company Clearview AI. Read more
Australian Information Commissioner to sue Facebook Tuesday March 10, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Federal The Australian Information Commissioner is taking Facebook to court for allegedly breaching the privacy of more than 300,000 Australians through an app related to the… Read more
Privacy commissioner launches inquiry into police use of facial recognition software Thursday January 30, 2020 By Shannon Jenkins Communications & Technology The Australian privacy commissioner will investigate whether a facial recognition app utilised by 600 American police departments is being used by police in Australia. Facial… Read more
A shot across the bow: Home Affairs under investigation for persistent breaches of FOI Act Friday October 25, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal Information commissioner Angelene Falk has fired a warning shot at the Australian Public Service over transparency with the announcement that she is investigating the Department… Read more
The Department of the Environment and Energy has been breaching the FOI Act for 10 months now Wednesday October 16, 2019 By Stephen Easton Communications & Technology The Department of the Environment and Energy has been in breach of the Freedom of Information Act for almost 10 months. That's how long it's… Read more
Premium Insights and analysis Public servants tell harrowing tales of harassment after a mention in an FOI release. Their leaders want to shield them from the trolls, but anonymity comes with a price Wednesday September 25, 2019 By Stephen Easton Career Advice The Australian government's guidelines for dealing with Freedom of Information requests help balance many of the competing interests that come with having a democratic, accountable… Read more
Australian public servants are uniting to demand a change to FOI guidelines Tuesday September 24, 2019 By Stephen Easton Federal Federal public service leaders want the official FOI guidelines changed to support their standard practice of shielding the names and contact details of staff below… Read more
Information Commissioner puts focus on prevention as cyber criminals target human vulnerability Thursday August 29, 2019 By Shannon Jenkins Communications & Technology The Australian Information Commissioner has called for better staff training to prevent data breaches, following a new report. Read more
Keeping names of public servants out of FOI: privacy protection ... or just a bit precious? Thursday July 18, 2019 By Stephen Easton Communications & Technology It is standard practice to block out the names of all but the most senior public servants from documents released under the Freedom of Information… Read more
Almost 1000 data breaches in a year, and citizens don't know who to trust with privacy Monday May 20, 2019 By Stephen Easton Communications & Technology There were 964 data breaches reported to the federal regulator in the first year of mandatory reporting rules and “malicious or criminal attacks” were behind… Read more
It's Privacy Awareness Week for public servants, campaigning pollies get a free pass Tuesday May 14, 2019 By Stephen Easton Communications & Technology Privacy commissioners of four states and the Commonwealth are celebrating their week on the awareness-raising calendar, at the pointy end of an election campaign that… Read more
John McMillan bats away claims of apprehended bias against John Lloyd Friday October 19, 2018 By Stephen Easton Career Advice The experienced jurist responds to the former APS commissioner's claims that he exceeded his brief and that he should have been excluded due to apprehended bias… Read more
