Shift in thinking necessary to protect online privacy

The Senate Environment and Communications Reference Committee report on the adequacy of protections for the privacy of Australians online released last week examines issues  related to the adequacy of the existing privacy framework for protecting the privacy of Australians online; and challenges for law enforcement arising from technological advances. The Committee made a string of important recommendations (the response to the Government's plans for data retention by ISPs attracted most media interest) and also warned of dangers arising from rapid advances in technology and ingrained thinking about policy prescriptions from another era [2.85]:

..in relation to a number of emerging issues, it seems Australia's current approach to privacy regulation is applying offline thinking to online situations. The committee cautions that, as online technology continues to develop and new privacy issues emerge, it will be necessary to continually evaluate Australia's privacy framework to ensure that regulators are not simply applying old policy values and frameworks, which may be well suited to the offline contexts, to a very different online situation.

The recommendations were:

Bloggers (and others), the future is yours!

Where are we bloggers on the edge of politics going, what sort of clout might we come to exercise, is new technology changing, for better or worse, the nature of dialogue about what's going on, or should be going on around us? I have just signed up for this Microsoft sponsored opportunity to hear Matt Bai from the US and some interesting Australian panelists discuss these issues in Canberra on 25 June.

Thanks to Peter Black for the heads up.