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Internal emails show months of unheeded warnings from the OAIC about overstated privacy claims in the government’s age check technology trial, which didn’t technically test or assess the products against Australian law.

It’s important to know these issues are entirely fixable. They just require real public transparency about what’s blocked and why, real enforcement of global technical standards, and testing and active oversight of the telecommunications sector as a whole. We have none of that currently and it shouldn’t require a consumer class action for this to change.

The government brought in the preventative detention regime in late 2023, after the high court ruled indefinite detention unlawful, resulting in the immediate release of 92 people, including refugees and stateless people, who could not be returned to their country of origin. A larger cohort of more than 300 in long-term detention were ultimately released as well.

In November 2024, the high court found the subsequent monitoring regime, which included ankle bracelets and curfews, to be unconstitutional.

The government then passed amendments, making it so only those that “poses a substantial risk of seriously harming any part of the Australian community by committing a serious offence” could be subject to such

conditions.

The report found that Morrison’s failure to detect misleading advice from the department was caused by social services and human services departments both failing to advise him and other ministers that new laws were required.

The attack on Iran was “clearly a violation of the ban on the use of force under the UN charter and international law, which is the linchpin of the international order since 1945,” he told Guardian Australia on Sunday.

“Domestic criminal acts like the IRGC’s interference here, of course, are not armed attacks which would somehow justify military self-defence against Iran.

“You may not like Iran, you may not like what it does, but that doesn’t justify an aggressive armed attack on Iran.”

With less than three months to go until the federal budget, you are going to be hearing a lot more about tax. It seems that something is finally going to be done to fix the capital gains tax, but already conservatives are working to give the richest another tax cut.

The new shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson, has followed up his line that unemployment is too low by arguing high-income earners need a tax cut – because, poor dears, they are taxed too much to bother working.

There is no single template for the women and girls who found themselves trapped in ISIS controlled territory.

We rely on myGov, but can we trust its code?

Millions of Australians use myGov to access essential services like Medicare, the ATO, and Centrelink.  The myGov Code Generator app is one of the options for enhancing myGov login security.

But is it actually secure?  Services Australia, the agency who publishes it, claims it is.  But when I requested the app's source code under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, Services Australia refused, arguing that releasing the code would help "nefarious actors" and compromise security.  In other words: "Security by Obscurity".

True security requires transparency. Hiding the code prevents independent experts from auditing the system for flaws.  It also denies secure access to government services for people who do not live in the Google or Apple "walled gardens", or to people with disabilities and culturally and linguistically diverse cohorts who cannot use the app as designed, but who could use modified or translated versions.

A merits review at the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART)

After years of waiting for the OAIC's review of Services Australia's access refusal decision - which they punted on due to the technical nature of the matter - I applied to the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) for review.  In this proceeding I will challenge the government's claim that hiding public, publicly-funded software is necessary and in the public interest.

This is not just a fight about source code—it is a fight for the right to know how our government's essential digital infrastructure works, and for the right to make it better for everyone.

The government will use taxpayers' money (probably lots of it!) to employ top legal counsel to defend their position of secrecy and control. I need your help to level the playing field in this fight for transparency, security, and freedom.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/28756788

Please excuse Sky News link, they are the only source I've found so far that actually includes the letter in full.

SBS Article

The Guardian Article

Please excuse Sky News link, they are the only source I've found so far that actually includes the letter in full.

SBS Article

The Guardian Article