Sydney light rail tram
Data

A French startup is using your phone’s Wi-Fi connection to figure out how many people are using Sydney’s light rail

- November 20, 2024 3 MIN READ

Transport for New South Wales has defended the use of technology to track commuters’ devices, often without their knowledge, after privacy concerns were raised by local media. The system, which uses Wi-Fi signals to collect data from devices such as mobile phones, is being trialled on a small number of Sydney light rail services for… Read more »

AI/Machine Learning

Why we need a mindshift on AI and emotional data – and how startups will build a future of self-awareness

- October 31, 2024 3 MIN READ

Recently, Channel 10’s ‘The Project’ aired a segment on inTruth Technologies, the company I founded in 2021 to tackle one of the most significant challenges of our world today; self awareness and mental health. inTruth is the first of its kind; a technology that can track emotion with clinical grade accuracy through consumer grade wearables.… Read more »

digital ID
Cyber security

Australia’s digital ID plan doesn’t meet global privacy standards- here’s what the government need to do to fix that

- October 30, 2024 3 MIN READ

Australia’s new digital ID system promises to transform the way we live. All of our key documents, such as driver’s licences and Medicare cards, will be in a single digital wallet, making it easier for us to access a range of services. The federal government is still developing the system, with a pilot expected to… Read more »

Mark Zuckerberg
Data

Facebook admits it scraped data from Australian users without letting them opt out. Here’s how to protect yourself

- September 13, 2024 3 MIN READ

Facebook acknowledged in a Senate inquiry yesterday that it is scraping the public photos of Australian users to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models. Facebook’s parent company Meta claims this excludes data from users who have marked their posts as “private”, as well as photos or data from users under the age of 18. Since… Read more »

Meerkats
Data

What’s next for Australia’s Consumer Data Right after action initiation – and the lessons from overseas

- August 23, 2024 4 MIN READ

Despite being drafted and tabled in the Australian Senate in 2022, the Action Initiation Bill was only passed last week. Action initiation would transform the Consumer Data Right (CDR) from merely a data-sharing framework into a dynamic system that empowers consumers to take action based on the insights they gain. The CDR was created to… Read more »

Surveillance room
Cyber security

Why trust and protection from government snooping are central to its digital ID plans

- August 14, 2024 3 MIN READ

On Tuesday, Australia’s minister for government services, Bill Shorten, announced the federal government is developing a new digital identity and credential system. Known as the Trust Exchange (TEx), Shorten said the new system will be “world leading” and represents an “exciting step forward for Australia’s digital infrastructure”. But details about the system are scarce. Shorten… Read more »

Telstra pointless ad 1
Business

Telstra cops new rules after it ‘put people’s privacy and safety at risk’ in 163,000 license breaches

- July 12, 2024 3 MIN READ

Australia’s communications watchdog has imposed new rules on Telstra after the telecommunications giant was found to have leaked the details of more than 140,000 people who requested their phone numbers not be shared publicly. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said it had issued Telstra with “a remedial direction” following an investigation of the… Read more »

Young child being scanned by technology
AI/Machine Learning

AI has been scraping photos Australian kids for training data sets

- July 12, 2024 3 MIN READ

Photos of Australian children have been used without consent to train artificial intelligence (AI) models that generate images. A new report from the non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch has found the personal information, including photos, of Australian children in a large data set called LAION-5B. This data set was created by accessing content from the… Read more »

Mark Zuckerberg
Global tech

Meta’s Facebook subsidiaries have been smacked with $20 million in fines for misleading users over a free VPN that was harvesting data

- July 26, 2023 3 MIN READ

Two subsidiaries of social media giant Meta, Facebook Israel and Onavo Inc, have been fined $10 million each for misleading conduct, in breach of the Australian Consumer Law, over a virtual private network (VPN) service that was used to gather data on users and share it with Facebook’s marketing team.  Consumer watchdog the ACCC launched… Read more »

Data privacy
Data

A review of Australia’s privacy act has recommended letting people sue for serious breaches

- February 17, 2023 3 MIN READ

The landmark three-year review of Australia’s Privacy Act has recommended significant new rights be handed to individuals, including to sue over privacy breaches, have their data erased and to opt out of targeted marketing. A widespread review of the Privacy Act was launched in 2020 by the former Coalition government on the back of a… Read more »

ChatGPT
AI/Machine Learning

Why ChatGPT is a massive risk to your own data privacy

- February 9, 2023 3 MIN READ

ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Within two months of its release, it reached 100 million active users, making it the fastest-growing consumer application ever launched. Users are attracted to the tool’s advanced capabilities – and concerned by its potential to cause disruption in various sectors. A much less discussed implication is the privacy… Read more »

Facial recognition
Data

Bunnings is among Australian retailers using facial recognition tech to identify who’s shopping in their stores

- June 15, 2022 3 MIN READ

Well-known Australian retailers are using facial recognition technology to identify customers who enter selected stores, an investigation by consumer advocacy group CHOICE has found.  Hardware giant Bunnings, Kmart and The Good Guys are capturing facial recognition data. CHOICE asked 25 Australian retailers whether they use facial recognition technology, and analysed their privacy policies. Those three… Read more »