Peter A Clarke

Revenge porn or its new iteration “image based abuse” has been a feature of the internet for some time.  Social media and platforms in countries with no credible regulation has provided perpetrators with effective and vicious means to humiliate and harm those who were naive, foolish or simply unfortunate enough to have their images in the possession of others.  It is not a new problem.  Victoria  criminalised that conduct by creating the new offences of distribution of an intimate image, section 41DA, and threat to distribute an intimate image, section 41DB, under the Summary Offences Act 1966. Sexting is defined as “the creating, sharing, sending or posting of sexually explicit messages or images via the internet, mobile phones or other electronic devices”.  South Australia has similar laws with sections 26B and 26 C of the Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA).  
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In France prosecutions can be brought for invasion of privacy.  The trial of 6 individuals has just commenced for invasion of privacy and complicity.  The defendants include Read the rest of this entry »

Facial recognition technology using algorithims and artificial intelligence pose both legal and societal problems on an increasing level. The technology has not reached the potential its advocates, particularly of the law and order hue, have stated (leading to some very unfortunate outcomes of misidentification), but are moving in that direction.  This was highlighted last year in Fortune with a Our Facial Recognition Nightmare Is Upon Us, the Intercept with Read the rest of this entry »

The Australian Federal Police have self reported on a data breach involving a journalist’s metadata.  The breach was accessing the data without first obtaining a warrant  It is reported by the Fairfax press at Police illegally obtained journalist’s phone records under new metadata retention regime and the Guardian at Federal police admit to accessing journalist’s metadata without a warrant.  The ABC reports on it at AFP officer accessed journalist’s call records in metadata breach.

There was always a problem with the journalist exception in the  Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.   The exception was Read the rest of this entry »

Privacy practitioners have known for some time that drone technology’s rapid development has been impacting the privacy of individuals at an increasing rate.  The common law is quite moribund and completely inadequate to meet the challenge.  The legislation, such as there is, is Read the rest of this entry »

Health privacy breaches are generally egregious.  The nature of the information is highly sensitive and extremely private. One would think that the breaches are rare to the point of extraordinary.  Yet they are not.  They are depressingly common.  And usually caused by poor document/data management.  Such as properly disposing of documents when appropriate.  Not so apparently given the dumping in a Sydney bin of 1000 medical letters involving the personal information of 700 public patients.  It is reported in Patient privacy breach: over 1,400 medical letters found dumped in Sydney bin.

The culprit appears to be Read the rest of this entry »

In the 8th April edition of the Economist there are two brilliant articles that sum up the problems and dilemas with cyber security, How to manage the computer-security threat and Why everything is hackable.  It should be required reading for anyone interested as to how the problems with cyber security arose and how difficult it is to deal with.  The Australian in a somewhat breathless piece Big business and key agencies are now under ‘daily’ cyber attack  reports that Read the rest of this entry »

In today’s Australian the Prime Minister has an opinion piece, Towards a safer online world for Australians at every level, dealing with the Government’s cyber security strategy.  It marks the first anniversary of the launch of Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy. The article is Read the rest of this entry »

Password protection in privacy and data security law and practice is a vexed subject.  Single factor authentication, in the form of a password, is increasingly regarded as inadequate.  The common problem is Read the rest of this entry »

While government agencies are more systematic in their approach to document management and privacy that doesn’t mean they are particularly good at it.  They are better than many private sector organisations but that is not a ringing endorsement by any means.

In Confidential student details published in Education Department blunder the Age reports on an extraordinary privacy breach where personal information of students who have self harmed and been the subject of bullying or their medical conditions were published on the Victorian Education Department website.  In some Read the rest of this entry »