Face-matching legislation is on its way through parliament. Inquiries kick off into fighting cybercrime and regulating crypto assets. And the government ponders adopting Agile development. Also, some stuff from ASIO.
Here’s what I’ve noticed since the previous edition on 13 October.
- “Digital ID precursor legislation that provides a legal basis for the government to operate its document and face matching systems has passed the lower house despite privacy concerns from the Greens and a handful of legal and digital rights groups.,” reports InnovationAus ($).
- ASIO director tells Five Eyes intelligence summit that alleged Chinese spy was removed from Australia, with the relevant video via the ABC. Or if you prefer the Australian Financial Review story, Five Eyes nations gather to fight China IP theft.
- “‘Not proportionate’: Australian government urged to axe extraordinary terror powers amid low threat level,” with the urging coming from The Australian Human Rights Commission.
- NBN Co chief’s salary jumps to more than $3m despite government call for restraint.
- The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement has initiated an inquiry into the capability of law enforcement to respond to cybercrime. Submissions close 15 December.
- Meanwhile at Treasury, “The government intends to introduce a regulatory framework to address consumer harms in the crypto ecosystem while supporting innovation”. Submissions close 1 December.
- “The federal government may be shaping to use Agile thinking — specifically the INVEST method — in its approach to IT work, to decrease the potential for future “catastrophic” project failures,” reports iTnews.
- The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is undertaking a survey on “the use and benefits of beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) remotely piloted aircraft operations”. So, drones. Submissions close 17 December.
- Also, lots and lots of annual reports were tabled. I don’t have time to go through them all, but you can always browse parliament’s full tabled documents list. All in all, more than 400 documents have been tabled in the last week.
Please let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if there’s any specific items you’d like me to follow. The Senate is gathering next week for Supplementary Budget Estimates, so there may well be a bunch of things next week.
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[Photo: Mike Burgess, the director-general of The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Base image by Mike Bowers/The Guardian, processing by Stilgherrian.]