Peter A Clarke

The Age in Value your privacy? Few Australian websites do highlights the poor preparedness of organisations to meet the compliance obligations of the amendments to the Privacy Act when they come into force on 12 March 2014.

The article provides:

On March 12 2014, the way Australian organisations will have to handle online privacy is going to change significantly. We investigated whether these organisations are ready and found in most cases, they’re nowhere near.

The new Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) replace the current National Privacy Principles and the Information Privacy Principles. They cover organisations with more than $3 million turnover and some others such as healthcare providers, including government (Commonwealth and ACT). They will mandate how these organisations have to deal with sensitive private information collected in the course of their activities.It is now time for organisations to start taking privacy more seriously. 

To determine the level of compliance with the new principals Read the rest of this entry »

In the December issue of Atlantic there is a very thoughtful article, in They’re Watching You at Work,  on big data and the impact on the workplace, notably how employees are employed, treated and, unfortunately, fired.  There are also privacy implications in the use of big data and alogorithims.

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What happens when Big Data meets human resources? The emerging practice of “people analytics” is already transforming how employers hire, fire, and promote.

In 2003, thanks to Michael Lewis and his best seller Moneyball, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, Billy Beane, became a star. The previous year, Beane had turned his back on his scouts and had instead entrusted player-acquisition decisions to mathematical models developed by a young, Harvard-trained statistical wizard on his staff. What happened next has become baseball lore. The A’s, a small-market team with a paltry budget, ripped off the longest winning streak in American League history and rolled up 103 wins for the season. Only the mighty Yankees, who had spent three times as much on player salaries, won as many games. The team’s success, in turn, launched a revolution. In the years that followed, team after team began to use detailed predictive models to assess players’ potential and monetary value, and the early adopters, by and large, gained a measurable competitive edge over their more hidebound peers.

That’s the story as most of us know it. But it is incomplete. What would seem at first glance to be nothing but a memorable tale about baseball may turn out to be the opening chapter of a much larger story about jobs. Predictive statistical analysis, harnessed to big data, appears poised to alter the way millions of people are hired and assessed.

Yes, unavoidably, big data. As a piece of business Read the rest of this entry »

The Newdaily has published a piece Psst! Your secrets no longer belong to you dealing with the current privacy challenges and possible solutions.  I am one of the interviewees. Needless to say it is an excellent article.

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The Fordham Law School has published a very interesting article titled Privacy and Cloud Computing in Public Schools.  It is found here.

The key findings are:

• 95% of districts rely on cloud services for Read the rest of this entry »

In The New Armor That Lets You Sense Surveillance Cameras the Atlantic looks at devices that alert a wearer of surveillance.

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We pass under surveillance cameras every day, appearing Read the rest of this entry »

The Privacy Commissioner has released the expected publication schedule of the fact sheets, guidelines, policies and CR Code associated with the amendments to the Privacy Act 1988.

It provides:
Read the rest of this entry »

The Attorney General announced an Australian Law Reform Commission enquiry into traditional rights and freedoms in the context of Commonwealth Legislation that might restrict them.  Given the commentary in the last 18 months this should hardly come as a surprise.

The press release provides:

NEW AUSTRALIAN LAW REFORM INQUIRY TO FOCUS ON FREEDOMS

The Attorney-General, Senator the Hon George Brandis QC, has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) to review Commonwealth legislation to identify provisions that unreasonably encroach upon traditional rights, freedoms and privileges.

Senator Brandis said Read the rest of this entry »

The Victorian Privacy Commissioner is quite active.  The most active of the state privacy/information commissioners.  The office has released an information booklet to provide some advice on looking after one’s privacy.  The title is quite cool, Keep your Super Hero safe.  It covers the current hot button issues; computers and the cloud, mobiles and smart phones, sexting, social media and on line competitions, sign ups and surveys.  It is found here.

It provides:

Why ‘Keep Your Super Hero Safe’?

Keep your Read the rest of this entry »

The ongoing revelations about the extent of official snooping by the US National Security Agency as well as security organs of other states has had a deep impact on the cyberspace community.  Not just the civil liberties issues, signficant thought they are.  There are more prosaic concerns which are much more significant for industry players.  The bottom line.  Users expect their ISPs, search engines and other service providers to have adequate security and proper encryption.  The expectation of private communications is an intrinsic part of many operators business model.

The New York Times reports Read the rest of this entry »

Curriculum Matters, in State Assessment Group Approves Privacy Rules for Student Data, reports on rules governing personally identifiable information about students participating in assessment regimes. The transfer of data to secondary bodies is a constant source of concern in privacy law.  The new Australian Privacy Principles which will come into effect when the Privacy Act amendments come into force in March 2014 address this issue specifically.  The US has a different structure for privacy protection.  It is however useful to see how the issues are considered there.

The article provides:

The PARCC testing group approved a new policy Thursday that is intended to safeguard personally identifiable information about students that is collected as part of states’ common-core assessment regimens.

The action comes as debate continues to swirl about how student data will be used by PARCC (the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) and the other federally funded assessment consortium, Smarter Balanced. Some critics have raised alarms because they fear that the two state coalitions will hand over student data to the federal government.

PARCC’s new policy, approved by the governing board of the 19-member consortium, attempts to respond to this concern. 

On the opening Read the rest of this entry »