{"id":35670,"date":"2024-11-14T01:47:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T17:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=35670"},"modified":"2026-02-02T22:11:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:11:44","slug":"desperate-labor-readies-its-digital-australia-card-in-huge-assault-on-privacy-bernard-keane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/desperate-labor-readies-its-digital-australia-card-in-huge-assault-on-privacy-bernard-keane\/","title":{"rendered":"Desperate Labor readies its digital Australia Card in huge assault on privacy | Bernard Keane"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As the Albanese government hurtles towards what increasingly looks like one-term status, its flailing desperation and lack of judgement \u2014 or, rather, the substitution of its flawed political judgement for sound policy judgement \u2014 risk inflicting real damage on the community.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Its thrashing about on online policy grew wilder overnight with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland <\/span>revealing <\/span><\/a>Labor will impose a \u201cdigital duty of care\u201d on social media platforms, along with specifying categories of harm: \u201cHarms to young people; harms to mental wellbeing; the instruction and promotion of harmful practices; and other illegal content, conduct and activity.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Rowland wants to shift away from \u201creacting to harms by relying on content regulation alone\u201d, moving towards \u201csystems-based prevention, accompanied by a broadening of our regulatory and social policy perspective of what online harms are experienced by children\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, existing corporate media won\u2019t be subject to a tightly framed, legislated \u201cduty of care\u201d, or specified categories of harm. Imagine News Corp being required to operate with a duty of care concerning harm to young people. Its entire coverage of the climate emergency would have to change from blanket denial. It could no longer demonise Indigenous kids with impunity. Imagine television broadcasters and the major sporting codes being required to operate with a duty of care regarding gambling advertising, especially for children.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or imagine ARN Media having to operate its Kiis Network with a duty of care \u2014 it might have to actually do something about the puerile filth aired by its presenters, which supine broadcasting watchpoodle the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) <\/span>steadfastly ignores<\/span><\/a>. Rowland talks about social media \u201cteach[ing] our 14-year-old sons new misogynistic epithets\u201d, while her own portfolio regulator does nothing about misogynist drivel being broadcast to 700,000 people a week and who knows how many kids.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But Kyle Sandilands, like the television broadcasters and sporting codes addicted to gambling advertising, is mainstream media, and the prime minister <\/span>gives him interviews<\/a><\/span> and <\/span>attends his wedding<\/a><\/span> rather than regulating his blatant breaches of broadcasting standards.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For that matter, the \u201cduty of care\u201d also sits oddly with Rowland\u2019s controversial misinformation bill, which \u2014 contrary to the claims of its feral opponents \u2014 imposes the same half-baked, light-touch, \u201cco-regulatory\u201d model of content regulation on social media companies as that applying to broadcasters: the industry itself develops a code of practice and gets ACMA to register it. Sandilands routinely demonstrates what a farce such regulation is, so the rabid right frothing at the mouth about the bill shouldn\u2019t be too exercised.<\/span><\/p>\n

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However, that doesn\u2019t apply to Labor\u2019s online identity verification scheme \u2014 dressed up as an <\/span>age verification tool<\/span><\/a>. If the rest of the Albanese government\u2019s online regulation is merely incoherent and driven by the rent-seeking demands of a dying corporate media, its digital ID card \u2014 if done properly \u2014 represents the biggest assault on privacy and civil liberties since data retention.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And as with data retention, there\u2019s no meaningful political opposition to it. Nor is there any media scrutiny or scepticism. Indeed, a digital ID card is being driven<\/em> by the corporate media, especially News Corp, which Albanese has singled out, praising the company for campaigning for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either the resulting legislation will establish a trivially easy-to-circumvent scheme like a \u201cClick here if you\u2019re over 18\u201d box \u2014 in which case, cue corporate media uproar that it\u2019s not a meaningful scheme \u2014 or it will require every internet user in Australia to submit credentials for verification, as<\/span>confirmed<\/span><\/a> by bureaucrats this week. In other words, being asked \u201cpapers, please\u201d every time you log on to social media. It\u2019s a privacy nightmare.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And don\u2019t think for a moment that it won\u2019t also be rolled out for other sites deemed \u201charmful\u201d. There are threats to kids everywhere, if you look long and hard enough. Recall that the Morrison government\u2019s internet censor, Julie Inman Grant,<\/span>sought to shut down sex workers\u2019 websites<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Labor knows perfectly well that its digital ID card \u2014 let\u2019s be done with it and call it the digital Australia Card \u2014 is profoundly problematic. But it also knows that the evidence behind claims of massive harm to teens from social media<\/span>is wafer-thin<\/span><\/a>. That\u2019s why it sat on the issue and did nothing for the bulk of its term.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But perceived political necessity and the desire to curry favour with the corporate media have won out within a desperate, flailing government. Like Australia\u2019s mainstream media companies, Labor\u2019s oft-expressed concern for the welfare of kids is a thin veneer over self-interest. And we\u2019ll all pay for the lie.<\/span><\/p>\n

Desperate Labor readies its digital Australia Card in huge assault on privacy<\/span><\/a> | <\/span>Bernard Keane | <\/span><\/span>Crikey<\/span>
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Nov 14, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n

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  As the Albanese government hurtles towards what increasingly looks like one-term status, its flailing desperation and lack of judgement \u2014 or, rather, the substitution of its flawed political judgement for sound policy judgement \u2014 risk inflicting real damage on the community. Its thrashing about on online policy grew wilder overnight with Communications Minister Michelle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":35673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,687,301,31,3,683],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australias-move-to-the-right","category-class-war","category-corruption","category-media","category-political-issues","category-zionist-influence"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}