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Accountability, partners in the value chain and trans border data flows: looking elsewhere

Malcolm Crompton's picture
Sun, 02/11/2008 - 16:23 — Malcolm Crompton
As information flows ever more easily between jurisdictions, how can effective regulatory protections be put in place for the stakeholders?

This question applies equally to the protection of intellectual property (IP) as it does to the protection of personal information (PI) or any other valuable information assets held by an organisation.  It also applies equally to organisations in the private sector, be they banks or online retailers, as it does to government agencies, be they policing agencies or anything else in various services (Customs, Immigration, national security etc) or even hybrid processes such as the exchange of Passenger Name Records between airlines and authorities or fulfilling anti money laundering obligations.

In the debate about the protection of personal information when it moves between jurisdictions, two camps have emerged - those who think that information should only move between jurisdictions that have "Adequate" laws in place (ie focused on the legal constructs) and those who think that a more direct approach should be taken towards the organisations involved in the movement based on ensuring the "Accountability" of the parties. 

The debate has often generated more heat than light.  It has been documented in great detail by the Australian Law Reform Commission in For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC 108) at Chapter 31.

Is rationality returning to the official debate over the "war on terrorism"?

Malcolm Crompton's picture
Sat, 11/10/2008 - 19:28 — Malcolm Crompton

The debate has been long on rhetoric and short on cold, hard analysis.  But it may be about to improve.

Ever since 11 September 2001, governments, national security & law enforcement around the world have been arguing vigorously for hugely increased collection of information about citizens from disconnected sources and applying data mining to it.  Enormous resources have gone into these initiatives and laws protecting citizen rights have been compromised to allow them.  They have been equally vehemently opposed by civil liberties and privacy advocate interests. 

The debate has been long on rhetoric and short on cold, hard analysis.

At last, the debate is beginning to change.  It took a significant step forward on 7 October with the release of a report by the US National Academy of Sciences titled Protecting individual privacy in the struggle against terrorists.  The report was funded in part by the US Department of Homeland Security and the US National Science Foundation.  These are reputable researchers funded from reputable sources.

The report rather bluntly states that explosive increases in data mining have been a waste of time and resources.  Hopefully it marks the beginning of the end of a rather frightening era of this form of data surveillance by government. 

The Center for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) summarises the report into 4 major points:

1. There is little evidence that "data mining" works as a tool to detect or prevent terrorism, and lots of reason to think that it is unlikely to ever work for those purposes. There are many practical problems-bad and unstructured data loom especially large-but the major obstacle is that data mining depends on having lots of identified patterns to work with in order to make predictions. Commercial data mining, for example, for fraud prevention and marketing, depends on observing millions or tens of millions of transactions to be able to recognize statistically relevant linkages or patterns. Fortunately, we have very few patterns of terrorist behavior to work with, and terrorists (unlike most consumers) are working hard to mask their transactions, so the "promise" of data mining as a counterterrorism tool seems unlikely to be realized. 

2. There is similarly little evidence that behavioral or biometric monitoring works to detect or prevent terrorist acts. In fact, the committee found so little evidence of any success with behavioral or biometric monitoring that it could not reach consensus on any role that such techniques might play in counterterrorism. 

Better Regulation - There's always room for improvement

Lindsay Tanner's picture
Wed, 08/10/2008 - 14:56 — Lindsay Tanner

A bottom up approach - the start of which is simply listening to those who are affected by regulation on a day to day basis - can help limit the costs and improve the effectiveness of regulation.

Thank you for joining me here to discuss better regulation. 

Earlier this year I visited the UK, Netherlands and the OECD to talk to regulators, business leaders and politicians about how they have been tackling regulatory reform. 

I came back to Australia enthused and full of ideas and insights.  But I also came back with the view that these countries are not so far ahead of us that Australia could not also become a pace‑setter in regulatory reform.

To do this will require new ideas and innovations, including better use of information technology and a commitment to continuous improvement of our regulatory systems. 

Continuous improvement means building better regulation from the bottom up. History provides numerous examples of top down regulation imposed with good intentions but little awareness of unintended consequences and costs. A bottom up approach - the start of which is simply listening to those who are affected by regulation on a day to day basis - can help limit the costs and improve the effectiveness of regulation.

Phil Burgess and what's wrong with our political culture

Wed, 14/05/2008 - 10:52 — gapadmin

Nicholas GruenBy Nicholas Gruen

It's not just bad politics to turn up somewhere in a powerful position and tell the locals that they don't quite measure up to standards back home.

I haven't paid much attention to Telstra's participation in the public policy debate. It usually manages to get itself seen in a fairly poor light at least if one is not paying much attention as I haven't been. Even so, I've just read this speech by Phil Burgess, and I'm impressed. I'm impressed with it because its argument is interesting, and quite persuasive - except for one thing. He outlines some differences between Australian and American political culture. He does so in a very informed and perceptive way (at least for someone who's only been here a while - and I presume he had some decent research assistance, and indeed wonder whether, as such leaders often do he's passing off research assistance as his own wide reading. But I may be being ungenerous.)

In any event, Phil thinks that Australian debate is not vigorous enough. That people defer too much to what the government and senior government figures think...

Flaws with Centrelink and the policies relating to studying single parents

Thu, 11/09/2008 - 19:16 — queenbee14

Ramona MacFarlaneThe policies about education and single parents are very limited, they do not support long-term financial independence for individuals, but are focused on short-term solutions that cut back government expenditure.

As a single parent, I understand the pressures facing many women and men as they try and juggle children, child care, study, work and school, not to mention maintaining a home that is a positive and nourishing environment for their children and themselves.

I have just completed a bachelor's degree, which I started when my son was two and a half. I was on a Centrelink parenting payment single and although I did receive minimal extra monetary support from Centrelink, in the form of an education supplement of $62.40 per fortnight, ultimately I did not feel I was supported to attain my degree.

I decided to go to university so I could gain more secure employment and eventually cease needing government support. When I began my degree I decided to do it part time, as that was the best for my son and myself. I did this successfully for three and half years before Centrelink started to harass me.

When my son reached school age I was called into my local Centrelink office to discuss my job searching requirements. At that time I was doing part time study, which consisted of four contact hours and 20 hours of study per week. This level of commitment was about as much as I could manage while still keeping our home in order, doing extra curricular activities for my son like, soccer and gymnastics while finding time to study and finish assignments.

Centrelink informed me that now I had a school aged child I was required to do 16 hours per week of work either paid or volunteer. I was shocked that they were asking me to take on another activity in to what was already a busy life that was difficult to manage. I tried to explain to the customer service officer that my study time added up to 20 hours per week and that my face-to-face time was four hours per week and thus giving me a total of 24 hours per week of activity, but they told me the 20 hours of study didn't count! They only considered the 4 hours of face-to-face time and thus I would be required to get a job or my Centrelink payments would be stopped.

Social Networking: A new 'point of view' from Cisco

Wed, 23/07/2008 - 11:07 — msweeks@cisco.com

Martin Stewart-WeeksSo, here's a provocative question - if the answer is social networking, what was the question?  

It's easy to be carried away these days by an uncritical tidal wave of emotional engagement with the wonderful world of social networking with its evocative call to connect, communicate and collaborate.

And the evidence is mounting that we're past the stage of passing fad - 70 million blogs and counting, 120,000 new blogs created every day, the social photo site Flickr uploading anything up to 5,000 pictures or more every minute of the day. In 2007, Forrester research suggested that nearly 70% of 12-21 year olds were actively involved in social networks of one sort or another.

A new "point of view" paper from Cisco confronts one of the big questions facing government and public policy arising from this astonishing phenomenon: 

So how does the phenomenon of social network­ing affect government? Why should the ability of a single user to share a video of a skateboarding dog with a global audience of more than 100 mil­lion cause governments fundamentally to rethink not only how they interact with citizens, but what they actually do?