The government released a National Strategy for Identity Resilience, scrapped a satellite program, and frightened homebuyers with fights path maps for the new Western Sydney International Airport. And there’s more…
Here’s what I’ve noticed since the previous edition on 23 June:
- Australian’s data and digital ministers met on 23 June, but I only became aware of their full communiqué (PDF) this week. It has some important thoughts, in the sense that this is now how the government says it is thinking, on that they call the “national ID ecosystem” and “identity resilience”, pointing to a new National Strategy for Identity Resilience. This incudes a National Strategy for Identity Resilience and National Identity Proofing Guidelines, among other things. This is The Plan, kids.
- The National Space Mission for Earth Observation (NSMEO) program has been scrapped. This was meant to develop new Australian satellites to gather data on natural disasters, agriculture ,and marine surveillance.
- A report on online gambling titled You win some, you lose more was published by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs.Among other things, it recommenced that advertising for online gambling should be banned in Australia within three years.
- The Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit said that government agencies seek ‘external assurance’ of their cybersecurity maturity
- “Critical infrastructure providers regulated by Australia’s recently beefed-up cyber security laws… could soon have their customer data roped in under the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act,” reports The Mandarin.
- The Australian Institute of Criminology released its first report in the Cybercrime in Australia series, based on a large survey of computer users conducted in early 2023.
- The government has released the Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport preliminary flight path design for single runway operations, and there is bound to be much sookage. There’s a really cool mapping tool to help you explore the data.
- “The Department of Home Affairs deliberately withheld information that raised serious questions about the reliability of a future crime prediction tool because it wanted to keep using it on other offenders, the Victorian supreme court has heard,” reports the Guardian.
- The Australian National Audit Office released a report on the Management of Information Assets, focusing on “the effectiveness of the National Archives of Australia’s (National Archives) oversight and support of its key information management policy, and the extent to which the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) and the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) are managing information assets consistent with this policy”. Some 50% of agencies reported they ‘never/rarely’ transfer retain as national archives information assets consistent with the requirements of the Archives Act 1983. The number of digital records transferred to the National Archives by PM&C since 2019: one. By the ANMM: zero. Sounds like there’s some room for improvement.
- PwC to publicly name all staff involved in tax scandal, inquiry told.
- And finally something for those who love numbers. Young Australians far less likely than parents to shift to right as they age, report finds.
Please let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if there’s any specific items you’d like me to follow. Parliament is currently on its winter break, scheduled to return on Monday 31 July, so the next edition will appear when there’s enough to make it worthwhile.
If you’ve been finding this series of posts useful, please consider throwing a tip into the tip jar.
[Photo: Australia’s Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten.]