Government Regulation, Legislation & Enforcement – Page 11

Cybersecurity: location, location, location

Dec 06 2018

Authors: Cameron Abbott and Sara Zokaei Fard

According to a report published by BitSight on 4 December 2018, “Are the New European Cybersecurity Regulations Working?”, Europe is one of the only exceptions to a global decline in security performance. There are regular occurrences of cybersecurity compromises around the world, with some sectors such as Technology consistently performing weaker than others. Companies in the Finance sector continue to be the world’s strongest cybersecurity performers, due to their high regulative overlay. While “continental cybersecurity performance continues to decline”, in Europe, cybersecurity performance is improving to an extent unlike any other continent in the world.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) officially went into effect in the European Union in May 2018. The GDPR is a landmark European Union law, that sets significant punitive fines at up to 4% of global revenue if organisations do not implement a broad set of cybersecurity requirements in certain circumstances. In the months following the implementation of the GDPR, European security performance has consistently improved and now significantly surpasses all other continents. In this same time frame, Oceania’s cybersecurity performance has spiralled downwards.

BitSight states “the chorus for GDPR-style regulation is growing internationally”. The statistics certainly support this. However others argue that countries like the US demonstrate significant competitive advantage in developing highly valuable big data and social media intellectual property because of the lower regulatory environment encouraging innovators. The value to economies of these industry segments is significant.

Encryption bill to give unprecedented power

Dec 04 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Wendy Mansell

The Coalition government is attempting to pass large-scale decryption reforms which will give sweeping powers to law enforcement agencies for overt and covert computer access.

The reforms have caused significant controversy as they may force tech companies and communications providers to modify their services, creating “systemic weaknesses” for intelligence agencies to exploit. However many point out these same vulnerabilities may be utilised by criminals.

Further the potential repercussions of these reforms may undermine consumers’ privacy, safety and trust through unprecedented access to private communications. This could have anti-competitive effects, as the reputations of Australian software developers and hardware manufacturers will suffer within international markets.

At the same time, the harsh reality that terrorists and organised crime increasingly utilise these technologies to evade surveillance highlights a very clear problem for law enforcement authorities.

We won’t seek to suggest where the balance between these interests should lie, but the debate rages on. Stay tuned.

Time to opt out of having a My Health Record has been extended

Nov 15 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd

Australians now have until 31 January 2019 to decide whether or not to have a My Health Record. The deadline to opt-out of having a My Health Record has been extended again.

Due to privacy and security concerns raised by various stakeholders and medical professionals, the Australian Government has proposed two sets of legislative changes to the My Health Record legislation to strengthen existing privacy protections set out in the legislation and established a Senate Committee inquiry to assess whether the My Health Record system is working and how it can be improved. In July this year, we blogged about the privacy and security concerns raised about the My Health Record system.

During the Senate Committee inquiry, it was revealed by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) that since the My Health Record system commenced in July 2012, the OAIC has received 88 My Health Records mandatory data breach notifications and 11 mandatory data breach notifications. The data breaches generally involved incorrect information being uploaded to a My Health record.

It is evident to us that the My Health Record system has significant privacy and security issues that should be properly considered before the opt-out period ends. These issues are highlighted in the Senate Committee inquiry final report. In addition, the amending legislation designed to strengthen the privacy protections of the My Health Record system is still being debated in the Senate.

Extending the time for people to decide whether or not to opt-out of a My Health Record is a sensible approach. This gives individuals more time to properly understand the implications of having a My Health Record and for important privacy issues to be considered by the Australian Government.

However if ongoing concerns remain about the privacy and security protections of the My Health Record System by 31 January 2019, if in doubt, better to opt out!

Q3 Notifiable breaches industry league results: Health first … lawyers a solid third!

Nov 08 2018

By Cameron Abbott, Keely O’Dowd and Colette Légeret

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released its third quarterly report of notifiable data breaches. This is the second OAIC report to be released covering a full quarter.

The report revealed that OAIC received 245 notifications of data breaches, marginally up from 242 notifications in the second quarterly report.

Some interesting figures from the OAIC’s report are as follows:

18% of notifications were from health service providers, 14% were from the finance sector; 14% were from the legal, accounting and management services sector; 7% were from the private education sector, and 5% were from the personal services sector;
85% of data breaches involved individual’s contact details, 45% involved financial details, 35% involved identity details, 22% involved health details, 22% involved tax file numbers, and 7% involved other types of personal information; and
57% of data breaches were due to malicious or criminal attack, with 37% due to human error, and 6% due to system faults, with cyber incidents, namely compromised credentials or phishing being the main the cause of

Of the 245 data breaches, 58 affected only one individual – however, 7 affected more than 10,000 individuals.

These figures are a clear reminder of the need to ensure that your business is equipped to deal with data breaches. To learn more about this, take a look at this 60-second video by Cameron Abbott. With professional services ranking a solid third, we’ll take some of our own advice too!

Apple calls for comprehensive US privacy laws

Oct 25 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Jessica McIntosh

It’s uncomfortable to think one of the world’s biggest business leaders has this week stood up and told us all ”our own information from the everyday to the deeply personal is being weaponized against us with military efficiency” what’s more uncomfortable, these powerful words are only a small snippet of a seriously forceful and passionate speech Tim Cook delivered in Brussels on Wednesday.

I Spy With My Little Phone – New Laws giving access to your phone data

Aug 15 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Colette Légeret

Yesterday, the Australian Government unveiled the draft Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 which aims to compel telecommunication and multi-national tech companies (Providers) to give law enforcement and security agencies (Agencies) access to personal encrypted data of suspected criminals, including terrorists, child sex offenders and criminal organisations.

242 data breaches reported in second quarter of notifiable data breach regime

Jul 31 2018

By Warwick Andersen, Rob Pulham and Colette Légeret

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released its second quarterly report of notifiable data breaches. This report is of particular significance as it, unlike the first “quarterly” report, covers a full quarter and therefore depicts a more accurate account of data breaches over a calendar quarter.

My Health Records – To opt-in, or to opt-out? That is the question

Jul 27 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Keely O’Dowd

This year all Australians will have a My Health Record created. A My Health Record will operate as a digital medical file that allows healthcare providers to upload health information about a patient. This information may include prescriptions, medical conditions and test results. A patient’s digital medical file will be stored in a national electronic database operated by Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA).

Facebook fined £500,000 over Cambridge Analytica scandal

Jul 13 2018

By Cameron Abbott and Sarah Goegan

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a notice of intent to levy a £500,000 fine against Facebook for breaches of the UK’s Data Protection Act 1998. The ICO found that Facebook failed to protect its users’ data and be transparent about how that data was being harvested. This failure, ICO said, did not enable users to understand how and why they may be targeted by a political party or campaign.

The fine comes as part of a larger investigation by ICO into misuse of data in political campaigns, and responds to the highly publicised allegations that Cambridge Analytica used data obtained from Facebook to target voters in the 2016 US presidential election.

Catagory:Government Regulation, Legislation & Enforcement