Bill Shorten: Technology upgrades are the answer to Australia’s data breach dilemma

In February, the Attorney General Mark Dreyfus KC released the Privacy Act Review Report after wide consultation.

The report proposed changes to the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and invited submissions from Australians. The aim is to reform the Act so it is fit for purpose in 2023 — a crucial piece of work in the data-driven world we now inhabit.

Think of what life was like in 1988, technology-wise, compared to where we are today. Floppy disks were still used in ‘88 and The Netherlands became only the second country, after the United States, to be connected to the internet. It would be another year before Australia joined the information superhighway. No Googling your nearest restaurant, no catching up on news on your phone, no work emails on weekends, still nursing the street directory on your lap to find where you were going while driving.

Today, we are always connected — on multiple devices at home, work or school. The pandemic accelerated our use of technology out of necessity and it appears there is no going back.

There are huge benefits to having this convenience at our fingertips. We shop online, socialise online, take exams online, do our tax online, book doctors’ appointments online and then have a telehealth appointment over the internet and on and on it goes. And that means we give over a lot of our personal data online.

Recent high-profile data breaches, like Optus and Latitude Financial, have rightly led to Australians demanding more of those who request their data in exchange for goods or services.

Businesses, all tiers of government and individuals are becoming increasingly conscious that we are well and truly entrenched in the digital age, and with this must come a new attitude.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas L Friedman recently wrote about his encounter with GPT-4. That’s the AI platform that can churn out essays and speeches about any subject and in multiple languages in a matter of seconds.

He found it stunning. A Promethean moment, much like the discovery of fire. And just as humans using fire changed our world, so too will the impact of this new technology.

But, Friedman said, old politics doesn’t describe how we regulate and work with new process. For that that we need a “complex adaptive coalition”.

Last week at the Australian Government Data Summit I addressed 300 senior officials from across the public and private sectors on this very subject.

I told the assembled data custodians that if we are to achieve digital reform then we have to do digital politics differently. Currently, we’re trying to harness the digital age while using old-school politics.

We must move to a debate about digital transformation that is not done through a solely left filter or a right filter, nor a solely Liberal filter or a Labor filter.

That’s how we’ve done things in the past and all it’s given us is a piecemeal, clunky, two-steps-forward-one-step-back version of progress. I likened the lack of a coordinated vision as something akin to trying to build a plane when it’s in the air.

My colleague the Minister for Finance, Katy Gallagher, who oversees the Digital Transformation Agency, and I are working together closely in the digital space.

At the most recent Data and Digital Ministers Meeting with our State and Territory counterparts, which Ms Gallagher chairs, we spoke extensively about Australia’s identity system keeping pace with the modern, digital economy.

First and foremost, any reforms have to put people first. Bringing together experts from academia, ethics, human rights, government and business to not only reap the potential but also protect us as we enter this new era of data development.

Rather than repeatedly having to hand over your original passport or birth certificate or other identifying document to different organisations with varying degrees of data storage integrity, a good future model would be one where you would only have to show your trusted credentials on your smartphone.

Think about young people entering licensed venues or buying alcohol; rather than handing over all the details on your driver’s licence, under this model the government would be able vouch that you are over 18 without handing over any other information. This will reduce that amount of data stored on all of us and ensures the data that is stored is accurate.

This won’t happen overnight, but we need a roadmap to make this happen. Last week your Medicare card became available on the myGov app. It includes a QR code and hologram to protect against fraud and theft, and that makes it easy for healthcare professionals to scan.

My call to action at the summit was that the people in the room, who manage our data, committed to join the Albanese Government in doing things differently. I promised to do my part and I asked them to do theirs. Because the challenge is not confined to politicians if we are to drive more progress on digital transformation, more quickly and more securely.

Australian governments and businesses — individually — have the will, the know-how and the creativity to take advantage of the digital age. Now it is time to form the complex adaptive coalitions that bring these invaluable attributes together so the entire Australian community can reap the rewards.

Bill Shorten is Minister for the NDIS, Minister for Government Services and Federal Member for Maribyrnong.