This blog usually shares a few things that you may have missed in digital, media & technology. This edition is all about Privacy Law Reform because that is the big news this week that will affect your business in many different ways.

Instead of analysing the hundreds of pages of law reform, I’ve suggested a framework on how to approach it and find what may be relevant to you. I’m also working on a podcast for it all too.

• Privacy Act Reform – Discussion Paper. Read the Executive Summary and the consolidated list of recommendations. It will provide the context. The Table of Contents identifies relevant issues that matter to you to deep dive into. A lot to work through and asks as many questions as it makes recommendations – but it does advance how we think about privacy.

• The Online Privacy Bill Consultation. The Online Privacy Bill looks at two major themes. Regulating Big Tech & online service providers and increasing enforcement powers. The drafting doesn’t seem to entirely match the intent in parts. Lots of things could be inadvertently swept up as ‘Large online platforms’ when the intent was to target Big Tech.

• Government trying to criminalise re-identification (again). In 2016, when George Brandis was the AG, he attempted to criminalise re-identifying Commonwealth data that had been de-identified. Leaving aside the question of whether that was really de-identification in the first place, the Government wants criminal sanctions to make data user think twice. This is one of the proposals in the Privacy Act Reform Discussion Paper worth calling out.

These were prepared listening to Soulville by Ben Webster & Oscar Peterson, and are best enjoyed with a coffee – or whatever your choice.

Let me know if you want to talk about any of it, but please share with a few people and encourage them to subscribe.

Brett

Here are a few things that you may have missed in digital, media & technology. Contact me if you want to talk about what these mean for you.

• Australia as a Technology & Financial Centre? Coming soon. The Australian Senate Select Committee dealing with this topic released its report this week. Spoiler – it acknowledges the importance of crypto-currency, but stops short of spelling out how to regulate it in any great detail. The digital crypto currency exchange regulatory measures are unsurprising but helpful to build trust in a growing market.

• The UK Competition & Markets Authority announced that it will investigate the digital streaming market power of the major record labels in the UK. This is hot on the heels of the DCMS Digital Streaming Report and a first step towards potential regulatory outcomes that would (ideally) improve market opportunities for digital music businesses and increased economic participation for artists.

• Google is rolling out a new privacy transparency tool for the Play Store. Aiming for a February 2022 launch, the tool is for developers to share information about how a customer’s personal information is used. Mandatory transparency is a step in the right direction for consumer trust, but greater choice would be even better.

• The US Copyright Office is commissioning a study into the rights of publishers. The Australian News Media Bargaining Code is our gift to the world, with the French adopting a version of it and now the Americans considering the concept. Going that little further, the US is asking whether ‘facts’ in stories should be a protected class.

These were prepared listening to all of Houndmouth on Spotify (thanks to Brett Oaten for the nudge), and are best enjoyed with a coffee – or whatever your choice.

Let me know if you want to talk about any of it, but please share with a few people and encourage them to subscribe.

Brett

PS: This week I joined the Australian Institute of Music’s iHub Start Up Accelerator for music technology ventures as a mentor. The AIM sees entrepreneurship as a core skill for the music industry and I’m pleased to support that – and an incredible cohort of music tech start ups – as they bring music tech ventures to life.

Here are a few things that you may have missed in digital, media & technology. Contact me if you want to talk about what these might mean for you.

• The RBA’s October Financial Stability Review contains a sobering section on cyber security – cyber attacks are up this year. The RBA expects financial services to do more to defend against inevitable cyber attacks. Not the easiest to navigate but well worth drilling into this for cyber security insights.

• Syniverse (no, me neither) admits it has been hacked – for many years, Syniverse has been exposed to malicious hackers who infiltrated their tech. Syniverse provide technology that connects and handles text messaging between operators (used to be called ‘middleware’). Shows that hacking is not a new threat but need to manage for the past as well as the future.

• McKinsey research shows cyber security maturity a challenge for many organisations. The research surveys cyber security maturity across many sectors with healthcare and financial services leading on maturity with technology, media and telecoms lagging.

These were prepared listening to the current AMRAP* Metro Top 10 chart, and are best enjoyed with a coffee – or whatever your choice.

Let me know if you want to talk about any of it.

Brett

* Australian Music Radio Airplay Project

Here are a few things that you may have missed in digital, media & technology. Contact me if you want to talk about what these might mean for you.

• National COVID 19 Privacy Principles were released this week providing organisations with much needed guidance on how to apply privacy to COVID data collection. The Federal and State Privacy Commissioners worked together on these principles to provide a consistent national view.

• A podcast first radio station launched which curates and plays podcasts in a traditional linear radio method. I’m all for someone else curating things for me to listen to, and I’m glad to see this model in podcasting – even though I’m left wondering that the ABC’s Radio National (and BBC Radio 4) does this already.

• Technology M&A data is hard to find, but the US Federal Trade Commission has you covered. The FTC released data this week analysing ~600 tech M&A transactions conducted by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft between 2010 – 2019, that were under the competition (anti-trust) approvals threshold. It’s unintended benefit is an industry benchmark proxy to see how your deal performed.

• Cyber Attackers demand US$5.9m (way to use psychological pricing techniques) to return access to the Iowa Grain Co-operative’s electronic files which are now encrypted. Attacking critical infrastructure players continues. Agriculture and meat processing businesses continue to be targeted, with this one reminiscent of the JBS attack in June.

These were prepared listening to Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Layla Revisited on vinyl, and are best enjoyed with a coffee – or whatever your choice.

Let me know if you want to talk about any of it.

Brett