The robodebt royal commission provided the big story to finish the week, but there’s also new guidelines for generative AI in government, drone security concerns, and a bunch more.
Here’s what I’ve noticed since the previous edition on 30 June:
- The big item this week is of course the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme’s final report, all 1000+ pages of it, released on Friday morning. I’ve only skimmed it, but even that tells me that it’s one of the most important such reports to appear in many years. The Guardian has this explainer, and The Saturday Paper‘s Rick Morton has this summary report
— although print deadlines mean it may not make it into tomorrow’s edition. [Update 8 July 2023: Oh it’s there, right on the front page.] There are of course reports at ABC News and The Conversation and, well, everywhere. Much more will be written in the coming days, but one important highlight is that Robodebt figures to face civil and criminal prosecution. - I’m loving Julian Bajkowski’s headline from earlier in the week, Robodebt’s secret is that there was no robot, just defective public servants. Also from The Mandarin, a handy robodebt timeline, month-by-month.
- Australia’s national anti-corruption commission receives 44 referrals on first day of operation.
- The Digital Transformation Agency has released whole-of-government interim guidance on the use of generative artificial intelligence in the public sector.
- “Academics have alleged that some peer reviews of grant applications are being written with ChatGPT, prompting the Australian Research Council (ARC) to warn academics that feeding their peers’ work into generative AI models could be a breach of confidentiality,” reports iTnews.
- “The federal government has bought at least 3100 DJI drones… with only a portion of the fleet grounded over security concerns.”
- New Defence CIO to lead $1 billion SAP rollout.
- The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) says financial services need to “raise the bar” when it comes to cybersecurity.
- “The government is setting up a three-day course through TAFEcyber that is intended to produce people skilled in assessing how well their organisation has implemented Essential Eight security controls, reports iTnews.
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.
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[Photo: Robodebt royal commissioner Catherine Holmes (right) hands her final report to Governor-General David Hurley.]