This paper is part of Australian internet policy, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Angela Daly and Julian Thomas. Acknowledgement: Thanks to the Melbourne Networked Society Institute at the University of Melbourne for funding our research project ‘The Internet of Things (IoT) and Consumer Privacy’, 2015-2016, and to our participants for generously sharing their experiences and concerns about the IoT. Some of the information and ideas in this article draw on Richardson et al., 2016. Introduction Collaboration, networking and innovation are predicted to change radically as we move into an era of the Internet of Things (IoT). One of the fastest-growing trends in …
News and Research articles on Governmental
This paper is part of Australian internet policy, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Angela Daly and Julian Thomas. Introduction In 2007, the Australian government took a dramatic new approach to the governance and management of remote Indigenous communities. The ‘Northern Territory Intervention’, as it became commonly known, was introduced as a means to combat child abuse and domestic violence in remote Indigenous communities, and included far-reaching changes to welfare administration, employment programmes and policing. Although the Intervention, which persisted until 2012, has been the subject of a great deal of public commentary and critique, one dimension has …
Internet accessibility for people with disabilities is long overdue. We draw on pioneering Australian efforts, compared with recent US and European initiatives, to argue for better disability internet policy now.
The ‘lawful’ intrusion or interference with information communication infrastructures poses challenges to democratic freedoms in Australia.
This paper is part of Australian internet policy, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Angela Daly and Julian Thomas. Part I: The Data Retention Act In April 2015, the Australian government passed the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act, which requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecommunications providers to store information about their subscribers’ online activity for a period of two years. The data retention rules apply to metadata – loosely defined as information that is not the 'content' of a communication. Generally, service providers must keep identifying information about their subscribers, including billing …
Papers in this special issue Introducing Australian internet policy: problems and prospects Angela Daly, Queensland University of Technology, Australia Julian Thomas, RMIT University, Australia The passage of Australia’s data retention regime: national security, human rights, and media scrutiny Nicolas Suzor, Queensland University of Technology, Australia Kylie Pappalardo, Queensland University of Technology, Australia Natalie McIntosh, Queensland University of Technology, Australia Computer network operations and ‘rule-with-law’ in Australia Adam Molnar, Deakin University, Australia Christopher Parsons, Citizen Lab, Canada Erik Zouave, KU Leuven, Belgium Internet accessibility and …
The German Federal Government is holding on to the German national law on data retention passed in 2015. In this op-ed, Volker Tripp of Digitale Gesellschaft argues that this attitude is untenable.
There is an increase in the Orwellian nature of schemes and programmes being launched in India, in spite of the absence of concrete privacy and data protection laws. While a major step towards mass surveillance was taken a few years ago in the form of “Aadhaar”, the central and state governments have subsequently adopted schemes which involve collection and processing of voluminous amounts of data.
After the global euphoria about the internet's potentials for empowering individuals and supporting democracy, more realistic arguments have been put forward against this optimism. 1 Indeed, we have been observing an ongoing fight between the autocratic government in Turkey and the Turkish people over using the internet for the last 10 years. It started with Law No. 5651 which was passed in 2007.
Internet intermediaries unilaterally define their terms of service (ToS) and enforce them privately by shaping the architectures of the networks and platforms under their control. Based on empirical evidence, Belli and Venturini argue that ToS and their implementation affect users’ rights.
The author provides an overview of the legal and cultural discourse surrounding pornography in the European Union member state of Bulgaria, in times of 'new digital realities'.
This paper provides qualitative analysis of Google’s and Microsoft’s policies and examines case studies to enhance understanding about the privacy role of information intermediaries in self-regulatory arrangements.
Despite criticism, this charter "is unique in reaching out to engage with much broader audiences than any other digital charter did before," say digital policy advisers von Weizsäcker and Schräpel.
The history of the internet design process as depicted in the internet RFCs provides evidence of the value of social capital, interpersonal relationships, and community in the face of instability. Drawing conceptual distinctions is a necessary first step for many of the other coping techniques.
Disclosing and concealing: internet governance, information control and the management of visibility
Datafication leads to subtle forms of governance; this article explores them by drawing on science and technology studies as well as sociologies of visibility.
How did early network designers govern the internet before internet governance? With archival research, this article shows how designers conceived of the Domain Name System (DNS) as a solution to the problem of governing future network users.
Focusing on different democratic ways of negotiating online privacy the authors identify several governance modes, including the currently prevailing protectionist mode.
Openness, inclusion and empowerment – how do these buzzwords determine the directions of access policy?
Internet governance bodies agree that improving online security is important, but disagree on what a more secure internet would look like.
Is the internet decentralised? I argue that it is not. To understand power in the internet, it must be viewed as a distributed system.