The Weekly Cybers #12
The ATO creates a new logo for myID but continues to be under fire for robotax, Elon Musk sues the eSafety Commission, and much more.
Welcome
The Australian Taxation Office features heavily this week, with a logo for their new digital ID app and more on the robotax dramas.
Down in the smaller items we’ve got digital ID, Elon Musk suing the eSafety Commissioner, some AI news, some cybersecurity, and more.
And yes, I’m a day late again. This time it’s due to a slight illness and pushing out a new podcast, The 9pm Keeping the Moon Nice with Dr Alice Gorman and Rami Mandow. Sorry about that.
Watch out for myID, fresh from the ATO
“The Australian Tax Office has applied to trademark myID and a new stylised, barcode-esque logo of Australia, both of which are expected to become the centrepiece of the new national digital identification system,” reports the Financial Review.
Aren’t we all glad they remembered Tasmania?
ATO robotax drama continues as columnists battle
This is what I wrote last week about the ATO’s flood of letters telling people they owed the government money, sometimes from years ago:
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has been given a good ol’ slap for resurrecting old debts worth billions and causing Australians distress in their so-called robotax campaign. The Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Taxation Ombudsman have even written them an instruction manual, How to tell people they owe the government money (PDF).
Well this week in Crikey, Bernard Keane wrote Robotax? More like a robo-beatup that misleads readers and duds taxpayers ($).
The media campaign against “robotax” is about looking after people who haven’t paid their taxes. The comparison with robodebt is offensive.
Over at the Guardian, Jonathan Barrett responded in Robotax: why the ATO’s controversial tax debt clawback scheme deserves media scrutiny, calling the Crikey piece an “outlier”.
At one level this about inter-columnist sookage. The Guardian broke the story, Keane at Crikey doesn’t like how the narrative has unfolded, and now the Guardian is firing back.
The Guardian does have some valid ammunition, although it’s a relatively minor point. Crikey says the ATO has no discretion and simply had to issue the debt notices. The Guardian points out that there are options.
But at a second level should this be, as Keane seems to believe, a simple matter of people owing tax so shut up and pay up?
Barrett disagrees.
The ombudsman, Karen Payne, said the ATO commissioner has remedial powers designed to modify how a tax law operates when it is not working as intended, such as making someone homeless, chasing absurdly small sums, or extracting decades-old debts from people who can’t verify the amounts because they no longer have records.
“It’s an underutilised and sometimes misunderstood power, but it is a discretion that is there for the commissioner to unilaterally remediate the law to produce sensible outcomes,” Payne said.
The ATO also has discretionary powers to waive debts under hardship. If the issue does require a legislative fix, the tax office can advise the government that a category of debts should be waived, something it could have done before rolling out the flawed campaign.
Which is to say, maybe the ATO could have handled this with more flexibility and more humanity. That’s certainly what the ombudscritters thought.
But there’s a third level. This whole story is about the philosophy and machinery of government, not the technology used to run it.
While it’s important that technology serves human needs rather than mechanically sending stern letters to people out of the blue, maybe this aspect of robotax is slightly outside the scope of this newsletter? What do you think?
As an aside, after an enquiry from the minister months ago, the ATO had assured the government that it adhered to best practice principles. Clearly it didn’t, so what does that say about the ATO’s judgement?
As another aside, the ATO is looking for a new tech leader.
How about a third aside? ATO reveals $6 million corrupt employee was just an APS5.
Disclosure: I have skin in this game because my tax affairs are not in order, although it’s nothing to do with robotax. I’m old-school enough to believe I should disclose anything that might be perceived as a potential conflict of interest.
Talking about the digital ID laws on RN Drive
Just after I’d emailed last week’s newsletter I did the regular Thursday evening Big Tech spot on ABC Radio’s RN Drive.
In the 9-minute segment, What will the new Digital ID law mean for you?, I also spoke briefly about the stock market debut of Donald Trump’s Truth Social.
Why not forward this email to a friend?
Well, why not? The more people this reaches, the more inspired I am to keep doing it.
Also in the news
- I wrote quite a bit about the new digital ID laws last week. This week we’ve heard that initially there will be fewer than 10 private digital ID providers, including banks and payments service providers. So I reckon I can already write down who most of them will be.
- In another demonstration of his inability to take direction, Elon Musk is suing the eSafety commissioner after X was issued with a takedown order. “The furore kicked off in late February when Canadian man Chris Elston slammed the proposed appointment of Australian trans activist Teddy Cook to a World Health Organisation panel on healthcare delivery,” reports News.com.au, not quite capturing in that paragraph just how nasty Elston was.
- “Food and grocery, finance, and transport will be the next three industries to have their cyber security tested under the government’s National Cyber Security Exercise program,” reports iTnews. “Previously, cyber security minister Clare O’Neil had outlined exercises in the aviation, financial services, and telecommunications industries.”
- Labor ministers warned over expanded use of AI in immigration and biosecurity decisions. Bah, I’m sure it’ll be fine.
- “Australia’s Defence Science and Technology Group has joined with the UK to equip submarines with underwater datacoms — aka ‘underwater wi fi’,” reports The Mandarin.
Inquiries of note
These deserve their own section, I reckon. The earlier you get involved with the policy development process, the more likely you’ll be able to get your views acted upon.
- The Senate Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI) has set the deadline for submissions as 10 May. It’s due to report by 19 September.
- Treasury has launched an inquiry into worker non-compete clauses and other restraints. People working in the tech field will be more than familiar with these! Submissions close 31 May.
- The Australian National Audit Office has released its Draft 2024–25 Annual Audit Work Program. Submissions close 21 April.
Elsewhere
I’m not sure what I’m doing with this section. Is it elsewhere than Canberra? Than government? Than Australia?
- Uber ‘tech bros’ sought to destroy Australian taxi app using corporate espionage, court hears. “Taxi Apps, the company behind GoCatch, is suing Uber in the supreme court of Victoria, claiming the rideshare giant knowingly launched UberX illegally in Australia with the intention of injuring GoCatch,” reports the Guardian. “The company has also accused Uber of serious misconduct, including corporate espionage and hacking competitor systems.”
- “A world-first study has found that when asked a health-related question, the more evidence given to ChatGPT the less reliable it becomes, reducing the accuracy of its responses to as low as 28%,” reports CSIRO.
- Singtel has ruled out any impending deal to sell Optus.
What’s next?
Parliament is currently on break until Budget Night on Tuesday 14 May, unless of course something dramatic happens.
Any questions or comments? Just reply to this email. Cheers.
The Weekly Cybers is a personal look at what the Australian government has been saying and doing in the digital and cyber realms, on various adjacent topics, and whatever else interests me, Stilgherrian, published every Friday afternoon (nearly).
If I’ve missed anything, or if there’s any specific items you’d like me to follow, please let me know.
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This is not specifically a cyber *security* newsletter. For that that I recommend Risky Biz News and Cyber Daily, among others.