It was Budget week, a week full of more annual reports, and the week we saw the proposed changes to the Privacy Act in the wake of the Optus data breach — and all the other recent breaches.
Here are the digital developments from Canberra I’ve noticed since the previous edition on 22 October.
- All of the Budget papers are on the Budget website, although there’s nothing much new from a digital or cyber perspective.
- There’s also the other one we were waiting for, the Privacy Legislation Amendment (Enforcement and Other Measures) Bill 2022. This “increase[s] penalties under the Privacy Act, provide[s] the Australian Information Commissioner (the Commissioner) with greater enforcement powers, and provide[s] the Commissioner and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) with greater information sharing powers.”
- The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (Special Operations and Special Investigations) Bill 2022 was introduced. “This Bill amends the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 (the ACC Act) to provide greater certainty with respect to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) Board’s powers to authorise special ACIC operations and special ACIC investigations.”
- A bunch more annual reports were tabled, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian Communications and Media Authority and eSafety Commissioner, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, the Classification Board and Classification Review Board, the Australian Information Commissioner’s activities in relation to digital health, the Australian Digital Health Agency, and the Digital Transformation Agency. Some of these may have already been published before this formal tabling in Parliament.
Please let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if there’s any specific items you’d like me to follow.
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