The big one is the depoliticisation of university research grant funding via the ARC, but there’s also news of ChatGPT use by Defence, password-cracking, and more.
Here’s what I’ve noticed since the previous edition on 18 August.
- Department of Defence staff used ChatGPT thousands of times without authorisation. We have yet to hear what for, exactly.
- The Australian government is restructuring the Australian Research Council (ARC) grants process so that, as education minister Jason Clare puts it, “the days of Ministers vetoing things they didn’t like the title of” are over.
- “State policing agencies are providing Services Australia with search warrants used to access password-cracking technology during investigations into welfare fraud,” reports iTnews.
- Labor’s counter-terror laws may stifle ‘political dissent’, Law Council warns.
- “The cost-of-living crisis was one of the problems teams tried to fix during GovHack, an open government data hackathon,” reports The Mandarin.
- And finally, it’s not really a digital thing, but Treasury published the 2023 Intergenerational Report.
- UPDATE: Something that came in late. Treasury is running two new consultations on the Consumer Data Right rules, specifically relating to the expansion to the non-bank lending sector and the Consent Review and operational enhancements design papers. Submissions close 6 October.
Please let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if there’s any specific items you’d like me to follow. Parliament is on break for one more week, until Monday 4 September.
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[Photo: Australia’s education minister Jason Clare.]