Australian Privacy

Date	Article Title	Publication	Author	Synopsis

7/8/2008	Australia, Litigation and Arbitration, Through the Looking Glass: Notes on Privacy	Mondaq	John Kell	In an article recently published on Mondaq, Hunt & Hunt's John Kell summarizes a number of recent Australian court cases with interesting privacy implications.
6/24/2008	Concerns personal data held by clubs could be misued	couriermail.com.au	Michael Wray	As more and more of the nations' pubs collect patrons' images and driver's licence details upon entrance, there is growing concern about the protection of that data.
6/16/2008	Education database raises privacy fears	Sydney Morning Herald	AAP	A student database set to launch in December has raised privacy concerns, says the Sydney Morning Herald. The photographs and personal details of Queensland's 480,000 primary and secondary school students will be compiled onto the state government's intranet database, OneSchool.
5/29/2008	Privacy tort a blow to free speech	The Australian Business	Chris Merritt	A proposed new statutory tort of privacy has some concerned that the adverse affect such a law would have on the media outweighs any merits gained for personal privacy.
5/22/2008	Privacy rules for a Web 2.0 world	ZDNET Australia	Brett Winterford	If governments want to attract citizens to use their online services, they should give users control of their own information, according to former privacy commissioner and IAPP board member Malcolm Crompton, who spoke to attendees at the CeBIT conference in Sydney yesterday.
5/20/2008	Secret athlete drug probe 'illegal', says Government Solicitor	The Australian	Sean Parnell	The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) has been forced to scrap a secret pilot program aimed at identifying whether or not Olympic-bound athletes were using banned substances because the program breached the Information Privacy Principles of the Privacy Act.
5/15/2008	A bumper year for ID fraud	Sydney Morning Herald	Katie Cincotta	The Sydney Morning Herald reports that, with 200,000 Australians now using social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo, and MySpace, security experts and consumer groups are predicting the numbers of ID fraud will grow this year.
5/9/2008	Law Reform Commission readies information privacy dossier	idg.no		After 250 meetings and review of nearly 600 written comments, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) will submit a report and recommendations on changes to the country's information privacy laws to the Attorney General later this month.
5/7/2008	International Privacy Initiative - What do students think about privacy?	eGov Monitor	Office of Privacy Commissioner Australia	An international competition sponsored by the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA) aims to get secondary school students thinking about privacy.
5/5/2008	Gym 'breached member privacy'	Theage.com.au	Matthew Murphy	The Beach House Health and Fitness franchise has come under scrutiny by the Australian Privacy Commissioner under concerns that the outfit sold the personal information of certain club members to another health club.
4/23/2008	Australia hat-tips NZ on mandatory breach reporting	Computerworld	Sandra Rossi Sydney	Australia's privacy commissioner, Karen Curtis, is seeking input from the business community on a proposed new law that would make data breach notification mandatory in the country.
4/20/2008	Health privacy 'at risk'	Herald Sun	Peter Rolfe	A two-year overdue patient medical records system for Brumby's public hospitals may leave patient data vulnerable.
4/14/2008	Tracking device on bins ensures residents chip in	Sydney Morning Herald	Jano Gibson	As the world mulls the benefits and potential privacy concerns associated with using radio frequency identification (RFID), one Australian city has replaced all of its 78,000 trash and recycling bins with new units outfitted with RFID devices.
4/14/2008	Draft guidelines issued for reporting data breaches	The Industry Standard	Sandra Rossi	Australia's privacy commissioner has issued a draft set of voluntary guidelines for businesses to follow after a data breach and is seeking public comment to help further refine the guidelines.
4/9/2008	Privacy Connections Breakfast - Launch of Inaugural Australian Privacy Awards	smos.gov.au	Senator The Hon John Faulkner	At a breakfast event sponsored by the Privacy Commissioner last week, Australia's Special Minister of State, The Honorable John Faulkner, delivered his first public talk on privacy. He emphasized the Australian governments' strong commitment to chairing the work of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's (APEC) Data Privacy Sub-Group, which deals with cross-border data flows of personal information throughout the region.
4/2/2008	RFID-tracked cars coming to Australia & NZ?	Cnet News.com	Suzanne Tindal	Authorities in Australia and New Zealand are discussing how best to deploy RFID technology in automobiles to make roads and administration more efficient. Among the ideas being considered are the issuance of RFID-tagged registration stickers that could be used to pay tolls and parking, as well as aid law enforcement and reduce congestion in Sydney's central business district.
3/20/2008	Australia, Intellectual Property, Recent Decisions Of and Latest News From The Office of the Privacy Commissioner	Mondaq	Claire Bothwell	Australia's Office of the Privacy Commissioner ruled on three recent privacy cases involving retail, healthcare and telecommunications. In the cases: The Commission found that a ticket agency's receipt, which included some personal and credit card data, did not constitute a privacy violation.
2/19/2008	Biometrics A Political Challenge In Australia	Sydney Morning Herald		A biometric smart card proposed to unify identification for access to government services in Australia was scrapped at the eleventh hour over cost and privacy concerns when a new government was elected last year, setting back plans to transform security and ID management.
2/15/2008	Firewall A Useless Relic, Expert Says	itnews	Negar Salek	Data security, identity management and access control will be the face of IT security in the not so distant future as threats move further away from targeting the infrastructure, an EMC global security expert has claimed.
2/14/2008	Australian businesses may be forced to publicly admit data breaches	itworldcanada.com	Darren Pauli	Proposed changes to Australia's Privacy Act would require organizations to notify in the event of a data breach involving personal information of individuals, and would give the privacy commissioner enforcement powers under the Act and the ability to make amendments based on technology-based changes.
2/14/2008	Aussie Privacy Commissioner Offers Breach Notice Guidelines	SC Magazine	Negar Salek	In advance of a potential update to the country's privacy law, Australia's Office of the Privacy Commissioner this week announced guidelines for conditions requiring organizations to notify consumers in the event of a security breach.
1/30/2008	New Push For Aussie Data Breach Law	Computer World Australia	Sandra Rossi	Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis is pushing for Australia to draft and pass a data breach law.
11/13/2007	CSA Calling For Measures To Protect Shareholder Information	The Sydney Morning Herald	Associated Press	Chartered Secretaries Australia (CSA), the organization representing corporate governance professionals, is pushing for the government to back measures that would prevent third parties from accessing company share registers.
11/7/2007	Salesforce.com Suffers Security Breach After Successful Phishing Attempt	eweek.com	Lisa Vaas	An employee of Salesforce.com fell for a phishing scam by revealing his or her password, leading to the compromise of customer information, including last names, company names, email addresses and telephone numbers, and "administrative data belonging to salesforce.com," according to information on the company's Web site.
11/1/2007	Video Interview: Keep Security In-House	ZDNET Australia	Munir Kotadia and Alex Serpo	Cesare Tizi, ZDNet Australia CIO of the Year 2007, offers his views of why organizations should not outsource their security. During the interview, Cesare warns that allowing outsiders to access sensitive company data, including credit card numbers, poses a high risk.

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