Displaying items by tag: Senate

A second tranche of legislation on critical infrastructure is likely to be passed by the Senate this week after it was given the go-ahead, with minor tweaks suggested by a committee.

The Australian Government has passed into law a bill to enable the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to obtain three new warrants so they can tackle serious criminal acts online.

On Tuesday night the Australian Senate voted to accept the Government's amendments to the Corporations Act, restoring the ability for companies to use electronic signatures and hold virtual annual general meetings (AGMs) until 31st March 2022.

A Republican senator from Ohio has criticised the US Government over taking more than three months to say who was accountable for not stopping the SolarWinds supply chain attack that first came to light in December 2020.

Both Google and Facebook have demonstrated to the Australian Government in no uncertain terms who exactly is calling the shots in the stoush over the news media code, but in diametrically different ways.

A Senate panel chaired by Tasmanian Labor Senator Helen Polley has said it considers the proposed authorisation of coercive search powers for the Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission in a current bill — the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 — could unduly trespass on personal rights and liberties.

Search behemoth Google, which is trying to muscle the Australian Government into accepting a news media code devised by itself, has contradicted its own threat to pull out of the market by slyly approaching smaller news organisations and trying to cut deals on its (Google's) terms.

It will be interesting to see who blinks first in the tussle between the digital platforms and the Australian Government: Google and Facebook or Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

The US Government's reaction to Twitter's blocking of dissemination of a story about Hunter Biden, the son of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, appears to have forced the social media platform to change its rules around its so-called Hacked Materials Policy.

The Federal Government's Digital Transformation Agency is one unit in Canberra that really earns its name. It transforms itself completely within as short a period as 18 months, gaining an entirely new workforce.

The Australian Government is attempting to fix a manufactured problem — disinformation on social media — without properly assessing the source to see if vested interests are pushing a case for which there is no basis.

Australia’s 'bush' communications group - the Rural Regional and Remote Communications Coalition (RRRCC) - has called for all sides of politics to support the passage through the Senate of The Telecommunications Reform Package legislation.

The Australian Information Industry Association has urged the Federal Government to drop its plans for changing the research and development tax incentive scheme as the result of the coronavirus pandemic which is largely affecting small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Former Senator and Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, has been appointed to the board of Australian financial technology and infrastructure company, Sargon.

Terrorists and paedophiles, the two claimed targets of the government's encryption laws, are likely to bury themselves deeper on the dark net and adopt necessary security precautions to keep operating as before, a senior security professional has warned.

The push by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to bring the encryption bill to a vote before Parliament rises for the year is facing an obstacle, after Senate president Scott Ryan raised the possibility that powers in the bill could conflict with parliamentary privilege.

The Australian Senate has reversed its position and backed a motion by the Greens calling for the adoption of more stringent privacy protections in line with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, acknowledging that it is world's best practice.

The Senate has approved a motion from the Australian Greens to support strong encryption, resist pushes to undermine encryption, and to use warrants and targeted surveillance to obtain information.

Labor's shadow communications minister Michelle Rowland claims the NBN Co takes an inordinately long time to answer questions raised during Senate hearings into the rollout of the national broadband network.

An amendment to the Privacy Act, in order to criminalise the re-identification of anonymised released government datasets, may fail to clear the Senate if the report of the committee appointed to look into it is any indication.