SUMMARY
We trust readers enjoyed the brief King’s Birthday break. There are wealth of digital and data opportunities among more than one hundred projects being supported by the new national Disaster Ready Fund, and the ATO is warning taxpayers to be on the lookout for scammers targeting tax time. This week we’ve got both the Queensland and SA Budgets coming out this week, and will be releasing Intermedium’s 2023 Digital Government Readiness and Maturity Index (DGRMI).
FEDERAL
Minister for Emergency Management Murray Watt has revealed the projects that will receive (full or partial) support from the Commonwealth’s new Disaster Ready Fund. There are several aimed at improving the data and technology used for flood monitoring and mapping. Others of note include $1.5 million for a remote bushfire detection pilot in Victoria using machine learning with satellite and terrestrial camera technology; $2.5 million to upgrade bushfire hazard maps, data sets, and reporting systems in WA; and $2.1 million to develop a multi-agency collaboration tool in SA.
With the financial year coming to a close, the ATO is warning taxpayers to be wary of scammers posing as the tax office on social media or in text messages and urging users to login to fake myGov sites.
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) is launching a performance audit to assess the efficiency of the Australian Passport Office (APO), a division of DFAT that delivers one of the government’s most complex logistics operations, requiring the integration of high-volume identity verification, fraud detection, payment, printing, and dispatch systems. The audit will likely be released in 2024.
STATE BY STATE
The ACT government is responding to a security breach affecting Barracuda, an e-mail gateway system supporting some territory government ICT systems.
NSW Education minister Prue Car has confirmed that Murat Dizdar will take the role of department Secretary permanently, after filling the role in an acting capacity for the past two months.
The MyServiceNSW platform has now incorporated Revenue NSW’s Land Tax Online service.
INTERNATIONAL
The US and UK have agreed on a new economic partnership, known as the Atlantic Declaration, on clean energy and emerging technologies. The commitment includes a ‘data bridge’ to allow the flow of personal data between accredited companies across the two countries.
A Russia-based cybercrime gang called ‘Clop’ is demanding ransom payments after breaching a file transfer system used by ‘hundreds’ of entities, including the BBC, British Airways, Canada’s Nova Scotia province, the US state of Illinois.
The southern Indian state of Kerala is providing 14,000 low income households (and 30,000 government offices with free high-speed internet, known as the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON). The state is aiming to eventually connect two million low income citizens to the web.