In recent weeks the Australian Government introduced legislation (the Digital ID Bill) to establish a regulatory regime for the accreditation of digital identification providers. Overall, the Digital ID Bill aims to give Australians secure and effective ways in which to verify their identify for use in online transactions with government and business.
On 7 December 2023, the Australian Government introduced legislation to abolish the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and establish a new review body called the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART). These bodies represent the federal system for reviewing decisions made under Commonwealth laws in areas including social security payments, migration, taxation and the NDIS.
Alert: AHRC releases guidelines for new positive duty. From 12 December 2023, the Australian Human Rights Commission will have the power to enforce compliance with the positive duty obligation under section 47(c) of Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). The positive duty requires organisations and businesses to take ‘reasonable and proportionate measures’ to eliminate, as far …
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Similar to the advent of the personal computers and the internet, ChatGPT is on the path to revolutionise the way we work, and the speed in which work can be done. With this change comes impacts to a whole raft of current practices in business, which although disruptive, will, in the long term, see an …
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Griffin Legal endorses the ‘privacy by design’ approach, whereby agencies proactively embed good privacy practices into the design of new technology, practices and infrastructure. It remains important that evolving and adapting agencies keep privacy at the forefront of their minds. A privacy impact assessment (PIA) is a good way to build up privacy. What is …
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The Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) has published revised guidance on the use of social media by Australian Government public servants. This comes just over a year after the High Court found that anonymous tweets can be a breach of the Australian Public Service’s Code of Conduct (Comcare v Banerji [2019] HCA 23). In that …
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A controversial shake up to Australia’s data laws came into force in December 2018. The Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 (the Amendment) amended several pieces of legislation to enable the Government to access the communications of individuals in the name of national security. The Amendment was passed to make it …
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Whilst probity is not an exciting topic, it is a very important one and should be considered when undertaking any procurement process. As government agencies and departments increase their interaction with the private sector, clear, visible and meaningful commitments to fairness encourage more suppliers to engage in business with the public sector. As such, the …
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The Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme commenced on 10 December 2018 with the enactment of the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 (Cth). As stated in its name, the aim of the Scheme is transparency – providing the public and government decision makers with transparency around who and which foreign entities may be seeking to influence …
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Workplace investigations undertaken by a Government agency must be conducted in accordance with the Australian Government Investigation Standards 2011 (AGIS). The standards were developed in conjunction with the Australian Federal Police and aim to maintain integrity in any government investigation process. The Standards set out the minimum standards required throughout all stages of an investigation. …
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