Peter A Clarke

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 »

That leaks are synonymous with politics is trite.  That a fair proportion eminate from Parliament is hardly controversial.  But those sort of leaks are politically motivated and the source is invariably anonymous.  Otherwise they tend to be self defeating.  The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade references committee has leaked sensitive transcripts of witnesses giving evidence in camera regarding Read the rest of this entry »

Anonymisation of data is a real challenge for both those wishing to use data for research and those who control it.  Data is anonymised to allow it to be used in more ways than it could be in its original state. Often it is not necessary to have personal identifiers in the research. There is a school of thought that holds that it is impossible to anonymise data.  That technology, in particular the use of algorithms and big data make it impossible not to reconstruct data.  That has not been tested with any certitude.  The usual problem with anonymisation is the crudity of the methodology generally and sometimes the sheer incompetence.

It is a key issue in cyber security and compliance with privacy obligations.

The Singapore Privacy watchdog has released guidance on anonymisation.  Under the guidelines there are Read the rest of this entry »

In early January 2017 the BBC reported on the prediction by Professor Richard Benham, the Chairman of the National Cyber Management Centre that “A major bank will fail as a result of a cyber-attack in 2017 leading to a loss of confidence and a run on that bank.” Professor Benham was concerned about the poor state of cyber security practices, regulation and governance in the UK system.  Given that the financial sector is generally Read the rest of this entry »

The Pew Research Center produces excellent non partisan reports on primarily but not always views, attitudes and understanding of many subjects falling under the rubric of social science.  In my view the findings of Pew have a universal application across most developed countries. On cyber security the findings ring true to my experience with Australian knowledge of cyber security, poor in general and, in certain groups,  lousy.  The full report is found here.

In a survey of 13 questions Pew found Read the rest of this entry »

The theoretical and human rights issues relating to privacy are well known.  But it is the danger of cyber attacks taking personal information which can harm businesses are often times ignored.  It is a matter of lax regulation and a lack of insight into the impact of such threats to business.

The UK National Cyber Security Centre has issued a sobering warning in its The cyber threat to UK business 2016/2017 report while the Institute of directors’ cyber security ensuring business is ready for the 21st century report highlights shocking ignorance within the business community.

The National Cyber Security Centre highlighted Read the rest of this entry »

The United States is a curious place when it comes to privacy protection.  There are four actionable torts protecting privacy and Federally there are a number of areas where privacy protection is quite stringent, notably health records.  Most states Read the rest of this entry »

The Productivity Commission’s long in gestation final report on data usage and access , Data Availability and Use, is about to be completed.  It will be handed to the Australian Government by the end of this month.  It is likely to presage a serious impact on privacy regulation.

There have been 211 initial submissions and 124 post draft submissions.

The chairman of the Productivity Commission, Peter Harris gave a very interesting speech on 22 March 2017 about the issues being considered by the Commission in the upcoming report.

The speech provides:

The Productivity Commission is in the final week of its inquiry into Data Availability and Use. Read the rest of this entry »

Transparency is an important part of government administration.  That includes providing details of the costs of administration. To that end publishing the cost of the use of telecommunications devices by MPs is hardly controversial.  Unless of course it involves a significant breach of privacy, including a breach of the Privacy Act 1988.  The Department of Parliamentary Services did not Read the rest of this entry »

The ongoing scandal involving the display of intimate (generally nude) photographs of female Marines by their fellow, male, marines on a secret Facebook page highlights the dangers of social media for breaching the privacy of others but also in demeaning and degrading women.

A Facebook Group, Marines United, would post photos of female marines, taken by the women themselves or their partners, without their consent.  So far 1,200 screen names have been identified, of whom 725 are active marines while 150 are in the Marine reserve.  The photographs were Read the rest of this entry »