Agencies need better training on terrorism: police commander

Few police or emergency services are adequately preparing their staff to respond to major terrorist incidents, an Australian Federal Police commander has warned.

8 May, 2018

NSW lacks coherent plan on cyber security: audit

The NSW Auditor-General has called on the State Government to ramp up cyber security after she found most agencies had untested response procedures, poor reporting of incidents and questionable staff training.

5 March, 2018

Public sector least prepared for cyber attacks

Governments at all levels are much less prepared for cyber attacks than organisations in the commercial sector. Security software vendor CyberArk has released its ‘Global Advanced Threat Landscape Report 2018’. Its 11th annual study of cyber security and organisation’s response to it. Responses are broken down by industry sector, giving a clear view of how […]

1 March, 2018

Data notification law starts today – as Privacy Commissioner says goodbye

Timothy Pilgrim, retired public servant The world is very different now, but many of us don’t know it. From 22 February 2018 Australia has a new Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) regimen. Under the laws, passed in 2017 as the Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Act, companies and government agencies have to tell people  if lost […]

21 February, 2018

Thousands of government websites hacked

A UK computer consultant has discovered that thousands of websites around the world have been hacked by ‘miscreants unknown’ and put to work mining the Monero cryptocurrency. Those infected include many government sites in Australia. UK security researcher Scott Helme discovered the hack and went to UK computer publication The Register, which broadcast the incident […]

12 February, 2018

Governments to increase spending on cloud, cybersecurity and analytics

Gartner’s Rick Howard Leading IT analyst group Gartner predicts that cloud computing, cybersecurity and data analytics will be the top technology spending priorities in the public sector CIOs in 2018. And data centre infrastructure will be the most commonly targeted technology for cost savings. A global Gartner survey of government CIOs found that 16 percent […]

1 February, 2018

Open data – too much sharing, too little care

Who’s reading your health information now? There can be benefits from sharing health and other personal information among health care professionals and researchers. But any such sharing must be based on an understanding of potential risks. It must occur only within an effective legal framework, with controls appropriate for those risks. A ‘Trust me, I’m […]

8 January, 2018

Australia to trial world first city surveillance system

Australian cities will be a test bed for ‘next generation security’ systems that will combine live video with advanced real-time analytics for a level of surveillance impossible with current technology. ICT vendor NEC Australia, a major supplier of biometric software to government, has partnered with Silicon Valley vision analytics startup CrowdOptic to develop the technology. […]

13 December, 2017

Effective security means better systems

The Australian urban streetscape has long featured video surveillance via high definition cameras. But there is more to security than high quality hardware – you need the right systems and techniques behind it. Many countries are now stepping up their security in terms of technology, budget and the number and skills of people involved in […]

11 December, 2017

Consumers to own their own data, with new bill

The Federal Government has announced plans to legislate a national ‘Consumer Data Right’ bill, which will allow customers of banks, utilities and telecommunications companies better access to their transactional data. Under the proposed legislation consumers will own the data, not the companies they are dealing with. This will make it much easier for people to […]

27 November, 2017

Jury still out on police body cameras

Smile, you’re on body worn camera (WA Police) The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) has published a report on the effectiveness of police body-worn cameras in Australia. The report is based on interviews with 899 people detained by police across Australia. It also examines some of the existing literature on body-worn cameras (BWCs), highlighting many […]

20 November, 2017

Government records on a seven year burn down

Modern technology means it has never been easier or more cost-effective to store and access information. So it is surprising then that many government departments, from LGAs to federal agencies, are still relying on audio and video tapes to store their crucial records. While legislation mandates the retention of some of this content, such as […]

2 November, 2017

TechnolgyOne gets another Shared Services hub

Adrian Di Marco Brisbane-based enterprise software company TechnologyOne has secured a shared services hub contract with the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (DIIS). It is the second shared services hub contract the Government has signed with TechnologyOne – the first was with the Department of Treasury in November 2015. Like the Treasury deal, the […]

30 October, 2017

DTA releases Govpass YouTube video

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has released a YouTube video showing how to create its new Govpass digital identity. The video was announced in a blog by Felicity Hitchcock, a product manager at the DTA. Govpass will replace the existing 100 point identifier used to access Federal Government services. It is still in its beta […]

17 October, 2017