Slater and Gordon have kicked off a class action lawsuit against Medibank for its shitshow of a data breach back in October last year. In a statement, Slater and Gordon said that "Medibank and ahm failed to protect or take reasonable steps to protect customers’ personal information from unauthorised access or disclosure and that the organisation failed to destroy or de-identify former customers’ personal information", as well as failing to "comply with legal obligations in collecting, using, storing, and disclosing customer information". Slater and Gordon have an active class action against Optus going at the moment too. Seems inevitable they'll have one against Latitude Financial in the next few months. Hopefully this kinda thing spooks CEOs and CIOs into getting their data privacy sorted.
Australia finally has a National Net Zero Authority. This government agency is blessed with $400m and according to the press release, will "support workers in emissions-intensive sectors to access new employment, skills and support as the net zero transformation continues" - as well as other investments from private businesses to "engage with net zero transformation opportunities" and help communities "take advantage of new clean energy industries". I doubt it will be perfect and some people will be stubborn and scared of change (even if that change is good for everyone), but if you're gonna force "emissions intensive sectors" to stop being so emissions intensive, the least you can do is make sure the people impacted aren't left behind.
Digital drivers licences are finally coming to the great state of Victoria. The licence will be stored in the Service Victoria app, as well as a "soon-to-be-launched" My VicRoads app. From the press release: "digital licences will automatically reveal if a licence has been revoked or suspended but will still be available for use to prove identity or age when it is not active. The licence has a highly secure, timed QR code that can be scanned by licence validators such as police, businesses and other authorities to verify authenticity and prevent fraudulent use". A trial will start in Ballarat as of July, with a statewide rollout by 2024. Now all we need is Myki to work on iOS thanks.
Ted Chiang has an excellent think piece in the New Yorker about AI's role in society and the economy. Go read the entire thing, but this paragraph stood out to me as the crux of what Ted's argument is about: "Some might say that it's not the job of A.I. to oppose capitalism. That may be true, but it's not the job of A.I. to strengthen capitalism, either. Yet that is what it currently does. If we cannot come up with ways for A.I. to reduce the concentration of wealth, then I'd say it's hard to argue that A.I. is a neutral technology, let alone a beneficial one". If we aren't careful, AI is just gonna make the rich richer and the poor poorer, making inequality - a big reason why everything that sucks, sucks - even worse.
Unisonic Model 6700 ZX Telephone, circa 1989 (The Henry Ford)
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