Data privacy

A deal between Australia’s governments to share data nationally has privacy experts worried

- August 18, 2021 4 MIN READ

State, territory, and federal governments have agreed to the first national data sharing program that will ease the movement of data between jurisdictions. The formation of the Australian Data Network follows an intergovernmental data sharing agreement signed by the National Cabinet in early July which commits Australian state, territorial and federal governments to share data with one… Read more »

Global tech

Here’s how Apple can scan iCloud for child abuse photos and still protect your privacy

- August 13, 2021 4 MIN READ

The proliferation of child sexual abuse material on the internet is harrowing and sobering. Technology companies send tens of millions of reports per year of these images to the nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The way companies that provide cloud storage for your images usually detect child abuse material leaves you vulnerable… Read more »

Google office
Global tech

Google has lost its legal fight with the ACCC over misleading consumers about location data

- April 16, 2021 2 MIN READ

Google and Google Australia misled consumers about its use of personal location data, according to Australia’s Federal Court in a landmark legal decision. Consumer watchdog the ACCC took Google to court in October 2019 over the use of location data collected through Android mobile devices between January 2017 and December 2018, in a world-first enforcement… Read more »

News & Analysis

Mike Cannon-Brookes and Paul Bassat are backing the CovidSafe app as the tech sector takes on suspicious minds

- April 27, 2020 4 MIN READ

  Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes and Square Peg Capital’s Paul Bassat are among the tech sector’s high-profile supporters of the federal government’s contact-tracing smartphone app, CovidSafe, released on Sunday, but many remain wary of letting politicians anywhere near their data amid ongoing suspicion of their motives. Cannon-Brookes came out in favour of the app, which… Read more »

News & Analysis

Australia’s information commissioner is suing Facebook for Cambridge Analytica data privacy breaches

- March 9, 2020 2 MIN READ

The Australian Information Commissioner has launched Federal Court legal action against Facebook, accusing the social media giant of “systemic failures to comply with Australian privacy laws” involving more than 311,000 Australian users as the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal continues. The case alleges that between March 2014 to May 2015, Facebook disclosed the personal… Read more »

News & Analysis

The ACCC is worried about data privacy from tech takeovers by Facebook and Google

- November 19, 2019 3 MIN READ

The growing power of Facebook, Google and other tech companies as they swallow smaller rivals has Australia’s competition watchdog, the ACCC, worried about the threat to consumer data and privacy. Speaking at the Consumer Policy Research Conference Conference in Melbourne today, Australian Consumer and Competition Commission chair Rod Sims said Google and Facebook “are essentially… Read more »