While corporations record you, Google makes your life harder

In this surveillance capitalism world, corporations obtain as much information on you as possible, and make huge profits from it.

One of the most important protections 'persons' and 'consumers' have is the ability to document communication with either authorities or corporations, where in Australia the two apparently separate entities have merged into a corporation aggregate called the 'Australian Government', whereas before it was the 'Commonwealth of Australia', but that's another topic altogether.

While corporations record your conversations with them, for 'quality and assurance purposes', where in many cases there is no 'opt-out', you (the serf) in many 'jurisdictions' are apparently not allowed to record them.

In Australia, the authorities are corrupt to the core and lie to you.

The police lie to the people, they lie to them a LOT!

https://corpau.blogspot.com/2020/03/australian-police-lied-on-use-of-ai.html

https://corpau.blogspot.com/2015/05/sacked-afp-officer-we-lie-to-members-of.html

When speaking with the authorities you MUST have some sort of documented proof of your interaction with them, because if your conversation's contents are required for legal purposes the chances that the court will be deceived are very high.

We therefore recommend Android phones with automatic call recording phone apps.

We do not recommend the purchase and use of Apple devices.

See article from phonearena.com of the headline:

Google will put an end to third-party call recording apps soon 

There are tons of call recorder apps on the Google Play Store, and if your phone doesn't come with one built-in, you can easily download one. But soon — or to be more precise — on May 11th, 2022, Google will kill these third-party call recording apps for good (via Android Authority).

As Reddit user NLL-APPS first noticed — and Google also mentioned in a developer webinar —, on May 11th, a new Play Store policy will come into effect, which won't allow apps on the Google Play Store to use Accessibility Service for call recording.

As Google stated, "The Accessibility API is not designed and cannot be requested for remote call audio recording."

For years now, due to privacy and litigation nightmares, Google has been trying to put an end to these call recorder apps, by blocking the conventional channels and APIs, through which they operated. As a last resort, the developers of these applications have begun accessing the call recording feature via Android's Accessibility Service.

We should note that Google's change will affect only the third-party call recording apps uploaded to the Play Store. If your phone comes with a built-in call recording feature in its dialer, you will still be able to use it.

It is very likely that Google will soon begin scrubbing apps that don't comply with its new Accessibility Service policies from the Play Store. It will be curious to see if the developers of call-recording apps will look for and find other loopholes.

NSW police officers convicted of domestic violence have kept their jobs, despite force's claims of 'zero tolerance'

Police Commissioner Karen Webb says she has "zero tolerance" for domestic violence but that attempts to sack officers who break the law are not always successful.(AAP: Bianca De Marchi)

At least six senior NSW police officers who recently committed serious domestic violence offences have kept their jobs, shocking victim advocates and raising questions about the force's commitment to addressing the scourge of abuse within police ranks and in the broader community. 

Documents obtained by ABC News under Freedom of Information reveal 27 NSW police officers were charged with domestic violence in 2019 and 2020. Of those, five male officers were convicted of their charges in court, three of whom are still serving — including a senior constable convicted of two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, two counts of common assault and breaching his AVO. Three other officers who were found guilty of their assault charges without conviction are also still serving.

A further 15 NSW police officers — 11 men and four women — were last year charged with domestic violence offences including destroying property, assault, stalking/intimidation, choking and using a carriage service to make threats to kill, documents show. The 2021 data is similar to that obtained in previous years, with 16 officers charged with domestic violence in 2020 and 11 in 2019.

Police Commissioner Karen Webb, who was formally sworn in to her role in February, said she had "zero tolerance" for domestic violence but that attempts to sack officers who break the law were subject to appeal, and not always successful.

"Obviously I haven't had to adjudicate on any of these matters — I've been Commissioner for the last 60-odd days," Commissioner Webb told ABC News. "I've got a very strong position on domestic violence generally ... [but] I can't speak for [decisions made by] my predecessors."

NSW Police officers charged with domestic violence

The NSW Police Force employs 17,727 police officers.

Source: NSW Police Force via GIPAA

When asked whether the public could trust the NSW Police Force to respond well to domestic violence in the community if officers found guilty of such abuse were permitted to continue serving, Commissioner Webb said it was a "reasonable question".

She said she was "sure" the six officers still serving after being found guilty or convicted of domestic violence would have faced disciplinary action and didn't think they'd still be on the frontline, but her office did not provide details by the ABC's deadline.

Still, it's relatively uncommon for police officers in Australia to be charged with domestic violence, let alone be found guilty in court. For context, in the year ending June 2021, 89 per cent of domestic violence defendants in NSW had a guilty outcome. Of the 27 officers charged with domestic violence in 2019 and 2020, however, just a third were found guilty with or without conviction, in line with trends in other states.

Figures undermine confidence in police, advocates say

Advocates say the figures are further evidence the NSW Police Force, like other Australian law enforcement agencies, has been failing to hold abusive officers to account, and contradict claims by senior police that the organisation has "zero tolerance" for criminal behaviour. As an ABC News investigation first revealed in 2020, police forces are too often failing to take action against domestic violence perpetrators in their ranks, deterring victims from reporting abuse and fuelling cultures of impunity.

It comes following a scathing assessment of how NSW police are responding to domestic violence across the board, with the auditor-general's performance audit last week finding numerous flaws and failures in the force's domestic violence operations, including with its handling of investigations into serving officers.

"It's difficult to believe that police officers found guilty of criminal offences are still allowed to serve in the police force," potentially responding to domestic violence incidents in the community, said Kerrie Thompson, chief executive of the Victims of Crime Assistance League (VOCAL). 

 Kerrie Thompson and her team at VOCAL have supported many victim-survivors of domestic violence by police officers in NSW.

"It undermines the good work that the majority of police are doing in responding to domestic violence. The community expects police officers to display a high standard of integrity and uphold the law," Ms Thompson said. "These findings raise questions about how and why officers are allowed to keep their job when they are convicted of criminal offences."

Senior constables in particular are "at the forefront" of domestic violence policing, she added — they frequently respond to domestic violence calls and take victim-survivor reports: "If they are perpetrators of the same abuse, I'm deeply concerned about their ability to provide adequate support to victim-survivors of family and domestic violence."

Sacking police officers in NSW

The NSW Police Commissioner can remove a police officer from the force under section 181D of the Police Act if they lose confidence in their suitability to continue as an officer. Officers who engage in misconduct may also face internal disciplinary action including a reduction in rank or pay or transferral to other duties.

Those found guilty of criminal behaviour are automatically referred for consideration for a Commissioner's loss of confidence, Commissioner Webb said, with each case assessed on its own merits: "But ... I don't have blanket approval for automatic removal and I have to take everything into consideration in making my decisions."

In other words, committing domestic violence is not necessarily considered serious enough misconduct to warrant sacking a police officer.

 The NSW Police Force responds to 140,000 calls for help with domestic violence each year.(AAP: Dean Lewins)

That's not to say it hasn't featured in matters before the Industrial Relations Commission. In one case heard in 2020, a former police officer appealed the Police Commissioner's decision to sack him for 11 findings of misconduct — including that he threatened and assaulted his partner — claiming his removal would be harsh. The Commissioner (then Mick Fuller) disagreed, arguing the NSW Police Force "has no tolerance for domestic violence behaviour", which he described as "criminal conduct and inimical to our sworn oath of office".

When one of the "key missions" of the force is to "drive out the scourge of domestic violence", the Police Commissioner said, "I can no longer have confidence in you to contribute toward the achievement of such a goal, in view of your misconduct". The industrial relations commissioner John Murphy concluded the officer's removal was neither harsh, unreasonable or unjust and dismissed his application for review.

Still, advocates and lawyers have pointed to inconsistencies between how senior police claim they respond to abusers in their ranks and the disturbing experiences many victims say they've had after seeking help from local officers. 

A 'stark window' into victims' experiences

Lauren Caulfield, coordinator of the Policing Family Violence Project, said the new figures obtained by ABC News were "distressing, angering and chilling" and added to mounting evidence in Australia and internationally that police officers who perpetrate domestic violence are significantly less likely to be charged and convicted than abusers in the general community. 

"The types of charges reflected in the data represent serious, high-risk and sometimes life-threatening violence ... it's a stark window into the experiences of victim-survivors who have reported this to police," Ms Caulfield said — and many don't. "Victim-survivors often speak of the way that police abusers weaponise their authority and knowledge of the family violence and legal systems — the ways their police badge shields them from accountability." 

 Lauren Caulfield says the new figures obtained by ABC News are "distressing, angering and chilling".(Supplied: Charandev Singh)

That at least six officers recently found guilty and or convicted of their charges are still employed by the NSW Police Force should be of "serious concern" to the public, Ms Caulfield added. As a point of reference, she said, a domestic violence conviction often precludes members of the general community from volunteering at many organisations.

"It is beyond concerning that officers using domestic violence — and even those found guilty of this in court — are still serving," Ms Caulfield said. "These figures contradict and undermine claims by senior police that officers who perpetrate domestic violence are held to the same standard as members of the wider community and instead reveal a pattern of impunity for officers who abuse."

Experts say one of the most pressing problems is that the NSW Police Force doesn't have a specific policy for dealing with employees who perpetrate domestic violence, and that investigations into serving officers are frequently managed by police from the same station or command, potentially creating conflicts of interest and implications for victims' safety and privacy. 

The auditor-general's performance audit released last week identified more or less the same issue. It found that while the force has basic procedures for responding to allegations against serving officers — such as securing the alleged perpetrator's service weapons — there is no guidance for managing conflicts of interest and ensuring investigations are independent. It recommended the force review its process for investigating domestic violence matters involving employees and implement procedures to safeguard their independence and mitigate conflicts of interest.

Yet police accountability lawyers have argued police shouldn't be investigating themselves, and that the police complaints and oversight system is not sufficiently independent. For instance, complaints about police conduct in NSW can be made to the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission. But the LECC is notoriously under-resourced and refers some 98 per cent of what it has called a "firehose" of complaints back to police for investigation.

'I'll be looking to improve where I can'

Commissioner Webb said she "welcomed" the auditor-general's findings and would work with the Audit Office and stakeholders to address its eight recommendations, but insisted NSW police managed conflicts of interest well and "put victims' needs first".

"An investigator that's allocated to a matter like this would have significant experience and have to declare up front ... that there is no conflict that can't be managed," Commissioner Webb said. "And if there is one, then it's given to another neighbouring command or our Professional Standards Command, which is made up of teams of detectives."

Other police forces have attempted to address glaring problems with how they respond to employees who perpetrate domestic violence and stop abusive police being given "special treatment". Victoria Police, for instance, recently launched a standalone policy for dealing with such matters and stood up a unit in its Professional Standards Command to investigate high-risk cases.

But Commissioner Webb, whose force responds to 140,000 calls for help with domestic violence per year, said she would prioritise servicing the broader community before considering whether she needs a specialist unit for dealing with perpetrators in police. 

"Having said that, my internal affairs unit is made up of detectives, designated criminal investigators that specialise and have all the skills to investigate any type of criminal offence, not just DV," she said. "And certainly while I'm in the role here, I'll be looking to improve where I can, and if that means I've got to change some things around delegations and authorities, then I will."

Source:abc.net.au

Paedophiles accessing department of health & human services data?

- How many paedophiles have access to Victoria's DHHS data?

- Can the police really prosecute them?

- Was this data breach made public?

This is the story of only one being caught:

Vic privacy breach of vulnerable youth data

A youth case worker stood down from a Victorian health department service provider on suspicion of accessing child pornography continued to access sensitive information about clients for months afterwards, according to a data breach inquiry into the incident.

Failings in the department’s privacy protections meant the man – who was also subject to a separate investigation into an alleged child sex offence – had unauthorised access to the personal information of dozens of vulnerable people for more than a year, according to the report which found “serious” contraventions of Victorian privacy principals by the department.

Details of the incident, which occurred between 2017 and 2018, have been revealed in a report into the data breach by the Victorian Information Commissioner, which held back the report due to separate police investigations and a trial of the former case worker.

Spring Street: Melbourne rocked by privacy breach of vulnerable youth data

The man, named as ‘XYZ’ in the report, was employed by a service provider contracted by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), now known as Department of Fairness, Families and Housing.

XYZ worked for over a year for the service provider, which was administering the DHHS’s Finding Solutions program, a Victorian government early intervention initiative to keep young people and families out of the child protection and out-of-home care systems.

In that role XYZ had access to the DHHS maintained Client Relationship Information System for Service Providers (CRISSP). Records held in CRISSP include names, addresses, DOBs, relationships, case notes, and any history of sexual abuse or exploitation.

The man ceased working for the service provider around September 2017 but his access to CRISSP was not revoked despite formal procedures requiring so.

About five months later police found child pornography on a laptop owned by XYZ but could not prove it belong to him because of multiple user accounts on the computer. Police told the DHHS that they had “serious concerns about B’s access to vulnerable and at-risk children”, according to the report into the data breach.

By then XYZ was working for another youth service provider, also managed by the DHHS but via a separate division. The DHHS notified the provider of XYZ’s suspected access to child pornography and he was stood down.

However, the DHHS did not discuss XYZ’s access to the CRISSP system as he had not required it in the new role. He was able to continue accessing the records until October 2018 when a staff members from two service providers noticed XYZ had accessed their clients’ files.

When notified, the DHHS revoked XYZ’s access, more than a year after it should have been when he left the original service provider. By then, though, XYZ had had accessed CRISSP 260 times involving 27 clients. XYZ also conducted 150 searches of the client record system, on each occasion accessing the personal and sometimes sensitive information of vulnerable people.

On Thursday Victoria’s information commissioner released his report into the data breach, finding both the DHHS and the service provider that initially provided XYZ access to the CRISSP had failed to take reasonable steps to protect personal information in the records system.

“The [Privacy and Data] Deputy Commissioner found that both DHHS and the [contracted service provider] contravened the [Information Privacy Principles] and issued a compliance notice against DHHS,” Victorian Information Commissioner Sven Bluemmel wrote in the report.

The service provider has already implemented the privacy watchdog’s recommendations while the DHHS is on schedule to complete all the specified actions required by the compliance notice.

Under the compliance notice the DHHS must:
• Implement a risk tiering framework for contracted service providers delivering the Finding Solutions program
• Update and simplify its contractual framework and guidance material for CRISSP
• develop training that is specifically directed at the information security and privacy obligations of systems administrators and organisation authorities
• implement a procedure to periodically check the currency of user lists for CRISSP

Commissioner Bluemmel said the finding shows public sector organisations can’t outsource their privacy responsibilities.

“Outsourcing arrangements cannot be ‘set and forget’.”

“When a government agency shares personal information and system access with its contractors, the agency retains both a legal and a moral duty to protect the personal information it collects, uses, holds, and discloses. Government organisations can outsource the management of a program, but they cannot outsource this responsibility.”

Sony's advertising on the Xperia Pro-I misleading to say the least

Corporations lie to you every single day, or to be more specific:

people in corporations lie to you.

Sony is not immune from telling you fibs.

Spotlight is on the Xperia PRO-I camera smart phone.

They centre their marketing drivel on the 1.0 inch sensor.

In the photo there is a depiction of the sensor being shown with a ring only cutting the corners suggesting that you have the whole sensor at your photographic disposal.

This is factually not true.

Because of the lack of a large camera bump as in other smart phones for example the Nokia 1020 (or 909 as sometimes referred to) 41MP 1/1.15" from 2013, the unsuspecting photographer has only a 60% available, or the equivalent of a 1/1.3" sensor.

In Australia at the moment the phone retails for $1839, from expansys. 

That's an eye watering $1800 for a product that you CANNOT make full use of the so called 1.0 inch sensor.

What a rip off, and a misleading advertising campaign from their website.

Will Australian consumers wake up to this farce?

Will the law even be aware of this?

As always no one cares unless someone takes it to court.

A Google Pixel 4 with a 12MP 1/1.255" for ~$560 may be a better alternative.

Australian Government & Amazon defrauding taxpayers millions!

Govt AWS contract balloons 10x to $390m in three years

US tech giant AWS has had its whole-of-government sourcing deal extended and “enhanced”, after the value of its previous deal ballooned in value by more than 10 times to $390 million across its life.

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) announced on Thursday that it had renewed its whole-of-government volume sourcing deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which had been set to finish at the end of April.

The new deal is set to cost at least $174.1 million over the next three years.

The deal gives federal, state and territory departments and agencies, along with public universities and government-controlled business entities a consistent approach to access and use AWS services, including cloud hosting.

The standardised agreement aims to make it easier for government to buy from AWS and reduce the costs of these deals.

Parliament House

The first deal with AWS was signed in 2019 and was estimated to be worth $39 million across three years. But the cost of this deal has skyrocketed in the years since and is worth a total of $390.8 million now, an increase of more than 10 times.

Amendments to the deal across its life included a $107.5 million jump earlier this year to cover “operational spend by agencies” and a $159.3 million increase late last year for “future commitments and increased uptake of the deal”.

Through the new deal, agencies and departments will be able to buy cloud services through the DTA or directly from AWS. Customers of the existing deal include CSIRO, the ABS, ASIC and the ATO.

“This enhanced whole-of-government agreement represents AWS’s deep long-term commitment to Australia and our ability to innovate and improve based on feedback from our partners and customers,” AWS public sector country director of Australia and New Zealand Iain Rouse said in a blog post announcing the new deal.

“We are looking forward to continuing to support the government in its digital initiatives, drive local economic growth and solve some of the biggest challenges in society.”

The federal government has seven whole-of-government agreements in place, all with multinationals: AWS, Concur, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Rimini Street and SAP.

As with the AWS deal, these agreements often significantly increase in value after their original signing.

The DTA signed a deal with SAP in 2017, running to September 2022, initially valued at $42 million, but this agreement is now worth $315 million.

A whole-of-government deal was inked with US tech giant IBM in 2018 estimated to be worth $1 billion over five years.

Microsoft’s own whole-of-government deal is now worth more than $800 million, eight times its value in 2019 when it was reissued by the DTA.

These deals have been controversial over their preferencing of large multinational tech firms over local players, with concerns also around the sovereignty of data and taxation issues.

Source: innovationaus.com

Apple wants your iPhone to replace your passport and driver's license

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The next step in Apple's goal of making the iPhone the sole thing anyone has to carry, continues with the device being able to securely replace passports, driver's licenses, and other physical forms of identification.

Apple most recently announced a plan to rid the world of car keys, but the iPhone has already made us forget what it's like to carry diaries, cameras, pens, and even mirrors. Now the company is focusing on getting rid of passports — plus library cards, ski passes, and ID cards in general.

A series of slightly different patent applications, all entitled "Providing Verified Claims of User Identity," detail methods by which a user's ID can be recorded or transmitted — and confirmed. Apple does not use the word iPhone once, but instead refers hundreds of times to devices that could be any piece of technology.

"A device implementing a system for using a verified claim of identity includes at least one processor configured to receive a verified claim including information to identify a user of a device," says one such application, "the verified claim being signed by a server based on verification of the information by an identity verification provider separate from the server, the verified claim being specific to the device."

Under this proposal, a device such as an iPhone could securely transmit some form of ID. If the owner of the device is already verified, say by the biometric sensors in Apple Watch, that verifies the ID being sent.

While Apple's application chiefly refers to passports, it's intended that one system be used for many things. "[This] allows a user to obtain a verified claim of identity that serves as a digital identity for the user, that includes information for identifying the user (e.g., information that was provided by the user and verified by one or more systems), and that can be re-used across different service providers," says the application.

The five borderline-identical patent applications discuss features such as the user's choice to opt-in to providing ID, and technical details of how the data can be securely transmitted. All five are credited to the same six inventors, including Christopher Sharp and Gianpaolo Fasoli, both of whom have prior related patents such as "Data verification via independent processors of a device."

That, Sharp's other patent regarding "Methods and apparatus for user authentication and human intent verification in mobile devices," and these five are far from Apple's first research into iPhone as ID.

Detail from the patent showing that ID may be securely transmitted and received by every type of Apple device

Previously, Apple has worked on secure ways of presenting government ID, and it has worked with both German and UK governments to help local identification projects.

Apple's vice president of internet services and Apple Pay, has publicly said that the company wants to provide ID, but also that it's difficult.

"Identity, to be legal, it has to be government, it has to be authenticated by the government," she said in 2019. "We see, across the globe, many countries starting to use mobile to add a passport.

"You may use a mobile passport when you're going through airports today, and so it is moving and I think it will continue," she added. "So it's not too far away, it just won't be as fast as some of the other activities we have."

Source: appleinsider.com