Word-whore. I write 'em. I talk 'em. Information, politics, media, and the cybers. I drink. I use bad words. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris! Vive les poissons rouges sauvages!
Public servants defend each other from criticism, the AFP does dodgy things with tech yet again, and junior public servants are a tad sexist. Also, a government minister performs an Elvis cover.
Continue reading “Digital developments from Canberra 59”
So many topics this week. Shoddy work from Home Affairs. Shoddy IT procurement. Surveillance. Digital identity. Data breaches. And pigs. Feral pigs. FERAL PIGS!
Continue reading “Digital developments from Canberra 48”
Robodebt’s main villain quit her new job, fraudsters hit the tax office, there’s more news of shoddy government IT procurement, and there’s routine reports from committees.
Continue reading “Digital developments from Canberra 46”
It was a short working week, but there was lots of action in Canberra: a TikTok ban, news of the cybersecurity strategy and a new robotics strategy, online safety, Medicare, Centrelink, military satellites, and more.
Continue reading “Digital developments from Canberra 31”
This is my third outing as guest co-host of Well May We Say, the Australian politics podcast from Jeremy Sear-Pirko in Melbourne and, this time, Denise Sear-Pirko. We had opinions on things. This episode is titled “Detachable Frydenberg” for reasons which will eventually become clear.
Continue reading “The 9pm Extra: Well May We Say episode 133, “Detachable Frydenberg””
“Two of America’s biggest retail banks — JPMorgan Chase & Co, and Wells Fargo & Co — are quietly recording the biometric details of some callers’ voices to weed out fraud,” reported Associated Press this week. The news caught the eye of Will Goodings at 1395 FIVEaa in Adelaide. I told him that the Americans are way behind Australia on this one.
All of the Big Four banks here are already using voiceprints. In the case of NAB and Westpac, since about 2009.
In fact, Australia is a world leader in voiceprint technology. In a Patch Monday podcast from March 2012, I spoke with Dr Clive Summerfield, chief executive of Auraya, who told me that Australia’s social services agency Centrelink has been using voiceprints to identify callers since 2005, and more than 95% of callers are identified this way. Voiceprints are also used by the Australian Taxation Office.
Here’s a recording of the conversation we had on air on Friday afternoon, complete with a talkback caller who followed me.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (7.5MB)
The audio is ©2014 dmgRadio Australia.