HWL Ebsworth hack: Queensland says its files were taken after criminals release Victorian documents

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Admin

State’s chief information security officer says information from Victorian departments and agencies was accessed

Highly sensitive legal documents from the Victorian government have been published on the dark web by cybercriminals, with Queensland also confirming files from at least one of its departments are included in the breach.

The breach is connected to data that was stolen from the law firm HWL Ebsworth in April by a Russian-linked ransomware gang, known as ALPHV/Blackcat, and posted online.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Senator says she has been ‘excluded’ from writing pamphlet – as it happened

Posted on July 6, 2023 by Admin

This blog is now closed.

Patricia Karvelas challenges Littleproud’s Covid reasoning behind the Murray-Darling Basin delays on ABC RN this morning.

“This isn’t a new problem … Your government was in power when a 2019 Productivity Commission report warned that there had been limited progress returning the water to the environment,” she says. “Why didn’t you change course?”

This is a very technical piece of legislation … The 450 is additional to the 2,750 gigalitres of water in the plan, the Productivity Commission looked at the 450 gigalitres, there’s only been 2 gigalitres recovered on the 450 …

Because the neutrality test on social and economic impact on rural communities have not been passed to get more water back out of it – that’s a test the Labor government put in place, that we adhere to that the states agreed to.

He [is] going down a path that’s divided the country and meant that the attention has been taken away from managing people’s cost-of-living crisis, and focused on trying to win a referendum in which he has overreached in conflating a voice with constitutional recognition.

Online safety bill: changes urged to allow access to social media data

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Admin

Campaigners say bill in ‘serious peril’ of passing without powers to make platforms more transparent

Online safety experts will struggle to sound the alarm about harmful content if landmark legislation does not allow independent researchers to access data from social media platforms, campaigners have warned.

The government is being urged to adopt amendments to the online safety bill enabling researchers to access platform data in order to monitor harmful material. Access would be overseen by Ofcom, the communications watchdog, and would protect user privacy.

EU countries accuse TfL debt collectors of breaching data protection laws over London penalty fines

Posted on June 18, 2023 by Admin

Belgium and Dutch vehicle licensing agency say citizens’ details obtained unlawfully to issue driving fines

Two EU countries have accused Transport for London’s debt collection agency of breaching data protection laws to obtain the names and addresses of citizens in order to issue fines for driving in the capital.

Motorists from across Europe have been hit with penalties, some totalling thousands of pounds, for driving in London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone (Ulez). Penalty notices are being sent to foreign motorists who enter the capital without pre-registering their vehicle, and the Guardian has revealed hundreds of drivers have been fined despite driving emissions-compliant cars.

Twenty-four UK doctors in five years censured over medical record breaches

Posted on June 13, 2023 by Admin

GMC says cases were among 194 incidents of alleged violations of confidentiality between 2017 and 2022

Two-dozen doctors have been disciplined by the UK medical regulator in the last five years after accessing and using information from patients’ treatment records without good reason.

The General Medical Council (GMC) said it had struck off two of the 24 doctors it had sanctioned after finding that they had undertaken “inappropriate use” of medical records.

Amazon’s Ring doorbell was used to spy on customers, FTC says in privacy case

Posted on May 31, 2023 by Admin

In the agency’s latest effort to hold big tech accountable, the company agreed to settle the privacy violations for $5.8m

A former employee of Amazon’s Ring doorbell camera unit spied on female customers for months in 2017 with cameras placed in bedrooms and bathrooms, the Federal Trade Commission said in a court filing on Wednesday when it announced a $5.8m settlement with the company over privacy violations.

Amazon also agreed to pay $25m to settle allegations it violated children’s privacy rights when it failed to delete Alexa recordings at the request of parents and kept them longer than necessary, according to a court filing in federal court in Seattle that outlined a separate settlement.

Facebook owner Meta fined €1.2bn for mishandling user information

Posted on May 22, 2023 by Admin

Penalty from Ireland’s privacy regulator is a record for breach of EU data protection regulation

Business live – latest updates

Facebook’s owner, Meta, has been fined a record €1.2bn (£1bn) and ordered to suspend the transfer of user data from the EU to the US.

The fine – equivalent to $1.3bn – imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which regulates Meta across the EU, is a record for a breach of the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Real estate agents push back against Australian privacy law changes designed to protect personal data

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Admin

Real Estate Institute of Australia president says additional layer of responsibility could force smaller agencies to close down

Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Real estate agents are pushing back against proposed privacy law changes, saying small businesses should not face more red tape to keep customer and tenant data safe.

The Real Estate Institute of Australia president, Hayden Groves, said that an “additional layer of responsibility is really not necessary” on top of agents’ existing duties, saying that increased regulatory risks could be “the last straw” for smaller agencies which may shut up shop.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Ministers looking at body-worn facial recognition technology for police

Posted on May 16, 2023 by Admin

Government’s intentions revealed in document produced for surveillance camera commissioner

Ministers are calling for facial recognition technology to be “embedded” in everyday policing, including potentially linking it to the body-worn cameras officers use as they patrol streets.

Until now, police use of live facial recognition in England and Wales has been limited to special operations such as football matches and public events such as the coronation.

Warnings over NHS data privacy after ‘stalker’ doctor shares woman’s records

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Admin

Exclusive: Victim speaks of feeling violated by hospital doctor incident that expert says is evidence of ‘systemic’ flaw in England

‘I felt anger, fear and horror that she had obtained my data’

The confidentiality of NHS medical records has been thrown into doubt after a “stalker” hospital doctor accessed and shared highly sensitive information about a woman who had started dating her ex-boyfriend, despite not being involved in her care.

The victim was left in “fear, shock and horror” when she learned that the doctor had used her hospital’s medical records system to look at the woman’s GP records and read – and share – intimate details, known only to a few people, about her and her children.

EU lawyers say plan to scan private messages for child abuse may be unlawful

Posted on May 8, 2023 by Admin

Under proposed ‘chat controls’ regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to screen for ‘identifiers’

An EU plan under which all WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat accounts could be screened for child abuse content has hit a significant obstacle after internal legal advice said it would probably be annulled by the courts for breaching users’ rights.

Under the proposed “chat controls” regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to survey billions of messages, videos and photos for “identifiers” of certain types of content where it was suspected a service was being used to disseminate harmful material.

UK competition watchdog launches review of AI market

Posted on May 4, 2023 by Admin

CMA to look at underlying systems of artificial intelligence tools amid concerns over false information

Business live – latest updates

The UK competition watchdog has fired a shot across the bows of companies racing to commercialise artificial intelligence technology, announcing a review of the sector as fears grow over the spread of misinformation and major disruption in the jobs market.

As pressure builds on global regulators to increase their scrutiny of the technology, the Competition and Markets Authority said it would look at the underlying systems, or foundation models, behind AI tools such as ChatGPT. The initial review, described by one legal expert as a “pre-warning” to the sector, will publish its findings in September.

Consumer advocates reject media calls to preserve exemptions to Australian privacy law

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Admin

Centre for Responsible Technology ‘supportive’ of proposed reforms, calling them the ‘first significant upgrade of privacy laws in four decades’

Consumer digital rights advocates have rejected media companies’ call to preserve their exemption to privacy law, warning that commercial models should not be put ahead of public interest.

Peter Lewis, the director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology, said it was “disappointing” that the Right to Know coalition “set up with the laudable goal of protecting journalists and whistleblowers is now being deployed to prosecute Big Media’s business interests at the expense of the public they purport to serve”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Almost 40% of domestic tasks could be done by robots ‘within decade’

Posted on February 23, 2023 by Admin

Chores such as shopping likely to have most automation, while caring for young or old least likely to be affected, says report

A revolution in artificial intelligence could slash the amount of time people spend on household chores and caring, with robots able to perform about 39% of domestic tasks within a decade, according to experts.

Tasks such as shopping for groceries were likely to have the most automation, while caring for the young or old was the least likely to be affected by AI, according to a large survey of 65 artificial intelligence (AI) experts in the UK and Japan, who were asked to predict the impact of robots on household chores.

Woolworths expands self-checkout AI that critics say treats ‘every customer as a suspect’

Posted on February 18, 2023 by Admin

Supermarket says cameras used to detect accidental wrong scans while experts say the technology is ‘punitive’ and call for reforms to protect privacy

Woolworths has expanded the use of technology that films customers scanning items at self-checkouts to 110 stores in three states, as critics say the functionality could make people feel they are under constant surveillance.

For the past year, Woolworths has trialled new self-checkouts with cameras installed overhead to observe customers scanning items. The company said artificial intelligence is used to detect when items are not scanned correctly, with footage of the scan recorded and played back to the customer instructing them to re-scan.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Bodies of missing men found – as it happened

Posted on February 16, 2023 by Admin

This blog is now closed. Follow our next Australia news live blog here when it launches

Where the parties stand

So the Greens are pushing hard against new coal and gas but have not indicated they are willing to kill off the legislation.

We’re willing to negotiate on everything that we consider will be in keeping with our government’s approach and our election mandate. Nothing more, nothing less. We went to the people seeking a mandate. That’s what we will implement.

Roundup Newswires

Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network

Category Archives: Privacy

HWL Ebsworth hack: Queensland says its files were taken after criminals release Victorian documents

Senator says she has been ‘excluded’ from writing pamphlet – as it happened

EU countries accuse TfL debt collectors of breaching data protection laws over London penalty fines

Twenty-four UK doctors in five years censured over medical record breaches

Amazon’s Ring doorbell was used to spy on customers, FTC says in privacy case

Real estate agents push back against Australian privacy law changes designed to protect personal data

Ministers looking at body-worn facial recognition technology for police

Warnings over NHS data privacy after ‘stalker’ doctor shares woman’s records

UK competition watchdog launches review of AI market

Consumer advocates reject media calls to preserve exemptions to Australian privacy law

Almost 40% of domestic tasks could be done by robots ‘within decade’

Woolworths expands self-checkout AI that critics say treats ‘every customer as a suspect’

Bodies of missing men found – as it happened