21 Nov SOCIAL MEDIA OVERHAUL; BUNNINGS HITS A SNAG
SOCIAL MEDIA OVERHAUL
Social media giants Instagram, Facebook and X could face fines of up to $50 million under Labor’s proposed legislation banning social media for under-16s in a shakeup aimed at protecting the safety and health of young Australians.
Communications Minister Richelle Rowland said the proposed legislation places the burden of compliance on the companies rather than parents or children and includes “robust privacy provisions”.
The Government’s proposed legislation has by-partisan support, and has even attracted interest in the UK, which is exploring its own legislation.
BUNNINGS HITS A SNAG
The Australian Privacy Commissioner has ruled Bunnings to have breached privacy laws by using facial recognition technology (FRT) on customers without consent.
The surveillance was aimed at flagging banned individuals who have stolen stock or posed safety risks to employees.
Noted in the AFR, Bunnings’ response was strong, highlighting abuse, threats and assaults against staff was up 50 per cent last year and FRT allowed 10 per cent of people responsible for 60 per cent of store threats to be identified. Managing director Mike Schneider also said data was “never used for marketing”, being deleted in just 0.00417 seconds – faster than you can say “privacy breach”.
As surveillance tech keeps advancing, so do ethical concerns about privacy, customer security, and whether facial scanning to buy a barbeque is really a fair trade.
CFOS BACK CLIMATE ADAPTATION TARGETS
A group of leading Australian Chief Financial Officers (CFO) have come down in favour of the environment, urging companies not to jettison their climate targets simply because of the recent US election results.
The results of the 2016 US elections saw America withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, but local CFOs have urged Australian companies to stay the course. Key Australian trade partners like the UK and Europe have complex and advanced climate and sustainability reporting standards in place and are unlikely to dismantle their climate compliance infrastructure simply because of the US election results.
Australia introduced new Climate Sustainability Reporting Standards in September of this year and local companies have been walking back some of their more ambitious climate targets for fear of non-compliance.
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