In Other Public Sector News for September 14

AEC overhaul

The Australian Election Commission (AEC) has gone to market with an RFI to replace its core election systems (some are 30 years old), including the Roll Management System (RMANS), General Enrolment Election Support Information System (GENESIS), and Election Management System (ELMS). The agency has been kicking around plans for several years.

Data Giants Decry Onshoring

Several cloud giants including AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud and Meta have voiced their opposition to fresh consideration to impose on-shore ‘data localisation requirements’ on (some) government data. The views were noted in submissions in response to a Home Affairs discussion paper on national data security.

STATE BY STATE

NSW: DaPCo Disbanded

With Minister Victor Dominello set to retire in little over six months, and the NSW government has disbanded the coordinating committee known as DaPCo – the Delivery and Performance Committee of Cabinet, which reviewed digital and data projects before they went to cabinet.

The NSW Digital Restart Fund team has shared the projects included in its most recent intake, following the Expenditure Review Committee sitting in August 2022. $65.77 million in funding will be released to 14 large and small projects, both new and old, across government.

The state’s ePlanning Tranche 3, Process and Technology Harmonisation (PaTH) – release 3, and Rural Access Gap – release 4 programs were all ongoing projects included in the latest announcement.

The state’s Education Wallet, which will allow individuals to digitally store and share their credentials in a single place, will receive funding, as will some lesser-known projects:

• Smart Places – Flood and Storm Intelligence: This $4.56m project will integrate IoT sensor information to alert emergency services in real-time about flood and storm risks.
• Digital Oyster Shipment Notification Service: $1.48m towards developing a ‘Tell Us Once’ approach to oyster shipment compliance and forms.
• Smart Cleaner Sydney Harbour: $500k will go towards to testing sensors placed in Sydney Harbour that will utilise AI to detect and notify local councils about rubbish in waterways.

Tasmania: step closer to Digital trade licences

Tasmania has passed legislation to allow ‘automatic mutual recognition’ of occupational licensing, to promote freedom of movement for across Australian states and territories – and paving the way for digital licencing in the Apple Isles.

NT: New digital Health and Virtual care project

A new three-year project has been launched to design and evaluate digital health strategies and virtual care models. The Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC) project is being led by NT Health and Menzies School of Health Research, and will focus on how existing and emerging technologies can best be utilised in remote communities.

INTERNATIONAL

The Irish Data Protection Commission has fined Instagram more than €400 million following an investigation into the mishandling of children’s personal data.

Shanghai has revealed plans to invest $72 billion in autonomous driving cars, with a target that 70% of vehicles will have self-driving features by 2025.

Apple has launched the iPhone 14, with a 48-megapixel camera, an accelerometer with a crash detector that will alert emergency services, and a new feature that allows users to connect to a satellite network in order to send SOS messages when out of range of a cellular network.

It is a big week for international ICT summits. While much of the world’s attention will be focused on the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 77) and the likely meeting of Putin and Xi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit (SCO) in Uzbekistan, the week we will also see:

• The World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) in Penang, Malaysia (13-15 Sep)
• The ICANN75 (internet naming) convention in Kuala Lumpur (17-22 Sep)
• The 50th Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) in Washington, DC (Sep)
• The Institute of Navigation Global Navigation Satellite System conference (ION GNSS+) in Denver, Colorado (19-23 Sep)
• The European Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining (ECML/PKDD) in Grenoble, France (19-23 Sep)
• The European IoT Tech Expo in Amsterdam (20-21 Sep)
• The Artelligence AI Summit in Dubai (20 Sep)