Choice has published the findings of its investigations of retailers using facial recognition with Kmart, Bunnings and The Good Guys using facial recognition technology in stores.  The Australian has picked up on that story with Faceprint technology: Kmart, Bunnings and The Good Guys are scanning customers’ faces in stores.

Both stories cover a disturbing pattern of organisations deploying privacy instrusive technology without any real restrictions or regulation.  As the stories make clear the compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 as to collection of personal information is either buried in on line privacy statements or small inconspicuous written notices under the heading conditions of entry off to the side of the entrance of Kmart stores.  This is arrogance writ large.  Kmart has undergone a box ticking exercise.  And the excuses used by Bunnings, that facial recognition technology is to “..to help identify persons of interest who have previously been involved in incidents of concern in our stores,” and that it is  “..an important measure that helps us to maintain a safe and secure environment for our team and customers.”  is, if true, a wholly disproportionate response to a problem Read the rest of this entry »

Canada is likely to join the United States and Australia and other countries in legislating increased cyber security for key industries as reported in New federal bill would compel key industries to bolster cyber security — or pay a price.  This form of legislation is probably required however remains a panacea.  Adding an additional layer of obligations doesn’t change the base of the problem, that too few businesses put in nearly enough effort in basic privacy and data protection,  The new laws will require the key industries to set up processes and respond to a cyber attack.  But will it mean companies will spend what needs to be spent to protect themselves properly.,  If Australia is any guide then no.

The Canadian Broadcasting Service Read the rest of this entry »

US Chamber of Commerce has written an open letter to the Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, on potential national data privacy legislation. As far as the history of legislative action in the privacy field this is a pretty big deal.  Little wonder given the growing patchwork of state laws that now exist to fill the gap in regulation.  From a business point of view having to comply with various levels of protections across jurisdiction would be a nightmare and one that will get worse not better. 

The letter Read the rest of this entry »

Blake Lemoine, hardly a household name, has the tech world and Google aflutter with his suggestion that Google’s artificial intelligence chatbox has become sentient.  That has earned him a suspension and whatever else Google can come up with on his return.  Google has Read the rest of this entry »

The Australian reports breathlessly with Australia an ‘easy target’ for bank app trojans that Australian banks are vulnerable to malware with 13 of 34 apps being targeted by a variety of banking trojans. Given Australian financial institutions spotty records when it comes to data breaches this story hardly deserves the column inches it gets.  In April last year NAB repaid customers $687,000 for a data breach.  In August 2019 hackers breached tens of thousands of Australian banking accounts through PayID.  In May 2018 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia lost the personal financial histories of 12 million customers.  And being a bank it decided that its customers did not need to know.  The information was contained in magnetic tapes which, of course, were not encrypted. 

So the most recent Australian story is worth a run but hardly a novel turn of events. The criticisms in the article about inadequate infrastructure, ineffective consumer protection laws and a poor mindset have applied for many years.  There is no incentive to change.  The consequences of a data breach are embarrassment, sitting across the table from the Information Commissioner for a few hours and compensation for those account holders who lost money through fraud.  That is small change Read the rest of this entry »

The private lives of celebrities have always been the subject of fascination, and a source of coin for certain parts of the media.  Magazines such as New Idea, Women’s Day, Women’s Weekly spent big on photos of couples doing what couples do..up to a point.  That earned them good readership and lots of advertising revenue.  That the magazine trade has hit the cyber wall does not mean the appetite to know about the private lives of celebrities has dimmed.  Far from it.  If anything the demand is more voracious. 

The Nine newspapers more into covering the the rich, not so rich, the famous and the just pleasant to look at to keep readership up on line.  Click bait trumps everything. Hence the Culture/Celebrity/Private Sydney column.   

Which brings us to the Rebel Wilson, privacy and the Sydney Morning Herald’s tenuous connection to journalistic ethics. 

The Sydney Morning Herald thought it was onto something when it heard from friends and associates that Rebel WIlson was in a new relationship and then spied a social media post that the relationship was with another woman.  Or at least that it is what Andrew Hornery, of the SMH, says.  Given Rebel WIlson had supposedly identified as hetrosexual that makes for a story.  So Sydney Morning Herald emails Rebel with questions and she, no doubt with the advice of her PR team, take control of the story and announce, if that is the right word for it, the relationship. 

The Wilson camp think she was going to be “outed” while the SMH felt it had a right to ask a question.  It copped a social media firestorm and has done a mea culpa of sorts with I made mistakes over Rebel Wilson, and will learn from them.  It is yet another example of the outsize influence of campaigners on social media to affect many aspects of our lives and the mainstream media.  Some of it is for the good.  Often times it is frightening and a threat to a robust but respectful exchange of views.  Here the outcome is probably good but some of the social media commentary is over the top.

At its core this is all about privacy.  The right of Rebel Wilson to decide to show to world what relationship she is in or not to show to the world what relationship she is in.  Her relationship status has no bearing upon how the economy operates or national security.  The simpering apology by the SMH talks about Read the rest of this entry »

The Rand Corporation has produced an excellent paper America’s 5G Era Balancing Big Data and Privacy which highlights the threat to privacy with the introduction of 5G.

The brief summary provides:

Key Findings

Recommendation

It is a very thoughtful and quite complex report.  Some of the more detailed comments Read the rest of this entry »

The use of closed circuit television has been a matter of concern in for privacy commissioners in Europe and the UK for some time.  Now the Privacy Commissioner in New Zealand has provided guidance on the use of the CCTV, responding to the concerns about the use of surveillance cameras.  Unfortunately in Australia at the Federal level the Information Commissioner has showed scant interest with one short page saying pretty much nothing about the issues.  That is a pity.   The potential of privacy intrusion through the misuse of cctv technology is significant. 

The media release provides:

From our experience, putting up a CCTV or surveillance camera can get a strong reaction from the public.

Our Privacy Concerns and Sharing Data 2020 survey found 41 percent of people over 18 years old were concerned about the use of surveillance cameras.

Because CCTV captures images of people, which can be used, stored, manipulated, and disseminated, those who operate the systems need to be aware of how to manage privacy issues.

Good management of personal information is essential to the effective running of CCTV systems. Businesses can only take advantage of the full benefits available from CCTV technology if they manage their system with privacy in mind.

All organisations considering using CCTV need to be mindful of their obligations under the Privacy Act 2020. Organisations must only collect personal information if it is for a lawful purpose connected with their functions or activities, and the information is necessary for that purpose. 

We always recommend that agencies minimise the amount of personal information they collect. Any information that is collected should also be securely disposed of once it’s no longer needed for the organisation’s purpose.

The guidelines provides, with Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a feature of US law that the states are enacting privacy and data security laws at quite a rate to make up for the lack of federal oversight.  In that way some states in the USA is surpassing Australia, such as in California. 

Features of the Vermont law Read the rest of this entry »

Justice John Dixon has provided a very valuable judgment in Agustin-Bunch v Smith (No 2) [2022] VSC 290 providing a very useful and detailed analysis of how to plead, and more particualrly how not to plead defences.  It ended up being a bad day at the office for the defendants.

FACTS

The plaintiffs by writ seeks:

• damages,
• a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from publishing certain material, and
• a mandatory injunction for the removal of certain publications from the internet that they allege are defamatory [1].

The second plaintiff seeks damages pursuant to s 236 of the Australian Consumer Law (‘ACL’), contending that the defendants had engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct in contravention of s 18 of the ACL [1].

On 12 April 2021,  the court refused the plaintiffs’ application for an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from publishing or causing to be published in any form, or maintaining online for download, or uploading so as to make available for publication online:

(a) 15 specific videos;
(b) hyperlinks to a Facebook group described by the plaintiffs as the ‘Dr Farrah Hate Page’;
(c) certain Facebook and Instagram posts;
(d) the imputations and representations set out in nominated paragraphs of the plaintiffs’ statement of claim; and
(e) any matter of and concerning the plaintiffs to the same purport or effect as any of the publications referred to.

The relevant publications alleged to convey defamatory imputations are videos [6] where Dr Smith speaks partly in Tagalog and partly in English to a Filipino audience [7].

The defendants pleaded the defences of:

• truth,
• contextual truth,
• honest opinion, and
• qualified privilege both at common law and relying on the relevant statutory provisions [8]

The plaintiffs allege about 70 imputations and the defendants plead a truth defence to approximately 60 imputations [10].The defences have been Read the rest of this entry »