I was planning to skip this week, but the fallout from the Optus data breach means there’s a few things worth mentioning. There’s also a quantum thing… or is there?
Sorry, but that joke is compulsory.
Here are the digital developments from Canberra I’ve noticed since the previous edition on 30 September.
- A few weeks ago I mentioned there’s a new  National Quantum Advisory Committee and now I see there’s a National Quantum Strategy consultation strategy (PDF) to comment on until 5 November. (Or it may have been there originally but I didn’t see it.)
- The government has announced changes to the Telecommunciations Regulations 2021 to allow Optus to share the breached customer data with banks and suchlike to help identify attempted fraud. We haven’t seen the text of the proposed changes yet, but I find it amusing that we’re dealing with a massive data breach by giving out the breached data to even more people. Hurrah!
- The Mandarin noted that Mike Burgess, now head of ASIO, warned of hacks targeting data hoarding honeypots in 2015. “In 2015, in his role as chief information security officer at Australia’s largest and formerly government-owned carrier, Telstra, Burgess gave evidence to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that regulations requiring carriers to harvest and centrally store customer metadata was essentially creating a new high-value target — or honeypot — for hackers.”
- The government is considering using myGov or its myGovID system to centralise digital identity authentication. This would presumably extend the use of the still largely mythical Trusted Digital Identity Framework to non-government entities. So far this seems to just be a thought bubble.
- However privacy and identity consultant Steve Wilson of Lockstep Consulting reckons that in the rush to be seen to do something following the Optus data breach, we risk responding the wrong way.
- And finally, one to watch: The long-running review of the Privacy Act will finally report to government by the end of the year. That story is from a couple months back, but recent events will probably help ensure that this commitment is kept.
Disclosure: Steve Wilson is one of my editorial consulting clients.
Please let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if there’s any specific items you’d like me to follow.
I hope I haven’t confused anyone by illustrating this post with a photo of Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus rather than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Variety is the spice.
Parliament next sits for Budget Night on 25 October, but I’ll add to this series of posts when there’s a batch of material worth mentioning.