Tag Archive for 'privacy'

Wholesale surveillance

Published
by
Robert Merkel
2 months, 1 week ago
in Crime
. 27 Comments

Here we go again. From the Oz:

CRIMTRAC’s planned automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system could become a mass surveillance system, taking as many as 70 million photos of cars and drivers every day across a vast network of roadside cameras.

State and federal police forces want full-frontal images of vehicles, including the driver and front passenger, that are clear enough for identification purposes and usable as evidence in court.

But it gets better:

According to a privacy consultation paper issued in June, all ANPR data collected would be made available to participating agencies in real time, and retained for five years for future investigations.

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Nation-wide electronic medical records by 2009 2012?

Published
by
Robert Merkel
5 months, 3 weeks ago
in Health, Medicine and Technology
. 28 Comments

Much and all as their antediluvian internet access policy is annoying, if you want to be kept informed about important issues you pretty much have to read the Fin. Today, for instance, there was a report (brief summary here) indicating the difficulties the states and the federal government were having in implementing e-health. Apparently, plans to introduce universal electronic medical records - that is, storing your entire medical history in a centralized electronic database - have been delayed until 2012. 2012? 2009? I wasn’t even aware that a formal plan to introduce such a thing exists, let alone by 2009.

As previously noted here, there are very serious privacy and security concerns about such systems, as well as great potential advantages. If they get it wrong, there’s considerable potential for it to blow up in the government’s face.

So here’s my little question. Before we get to the stage of spending billions - rather than the $150-million odd already spent around the country on such projects - it would be nice if the privacy and security issues were thrashed out. At the very least, it might save a lot of money in redesigns after media pressure forces hasty changes. Are we going to have a public discussion of these issues, or are we going to get another departmental omnibus program that, like the Access Card, is going to be so flawed that the only thing to do once it’s announced to fight is kill it off? Maybe a discussion paper or two to kick things off the discussion, perhaps?

Baring breasts vs. baring souls

Published
by
Robert Merkel
6 months, 1 week ago
in Life, Parenting, Sociology and Women
. 17 Comments

This post is a joint effort with Cassie Hampden, a postgraduate student in psychology.

One of the issues raised in the Henson brouhaha is the issue of the consent of the children modelling for the photographs, with one judge arguing whether it was really possible for consent to be granted and speculating about the possibility of a lawsuit if a model, later in life, regrets being photographed naked as a teenager.

In that context, a recent story on the 7.30 Report provides a rather interesting counterpoint. It’s a feel-good story about a 17-year-old girl, from a working-class background in a working-class Victorian town, who overcame both these barriers and a battle with anorexia and depression to win a national “Brain Bee” - essentially, a neurology quiz contest for later-year high school students. Through this success, she’s had the opportunity to do work experience at the Howard Florey Institute at Melbourne University, and travel to Montreal for the world final of the contest.

This is a wonderful achievement; and no doubt the horizons opened to her will lead in many interesting directions. But the way her story was told was unsettling on several levels.

Continue reading ‘Baring breasts vs. baring souls’