Signed on to MyGov recently? You may have found that to access it, you had to agree to the terms and conditions, so you checked the box and continued.

But if you read them, you'd discover that you've also agreed to the privacy notice.

Ever since the Privacy Act was legislated, government agencies have had to publish their privacy policy. The thing is, this policy is a description of how the entity is using your information. The agency is still constrained by the Privacy Act. They can not get away with putting whatever they like into the policy.

The Privacy Act allows an agency to use your information in any way that you agree to. Indeed, it would have been unreasonably problematic if a government agency had its hands tied so that it could not use your information in some unforeseen necessary way that you agreed to.

But you may have already spotted the problem. The gotcha with the MyGov approach is that you're agreeing to the privacy notice. That means that MyGov can use your information in any way that the notice says, regardless of whether that's necessary for the operation of the service.

In his second reading speech in the Senate, the then Minister for Justice, Senator Tate, said of the Privacy Bill (as it then was), "The first purpose of this new Privacy Bill is, like its 1986 predecessor, to regulate the collection, handling and use by Commonwealth Departments and agencies of information about individuals. "

Let that be clear - the first purpose of the legislation was to protect us from the misuse of information by the Government. MyGov's use of the requirement to consent to the privacy notice completely circumvents that protection. Even if you go through the privacy notice in detail, you face a choice of either accepting whatever it says, or doing without such things as filing your tax return on-line.

Perhaps the only surprising thing is that it took several decades before a government agency found a way to avoid their obligations under the Privacy Act.

I did try to log onto MyGov once, without luck. So, I asked for help via snail mail, and was ignored. End of story. Since then, I have not touched any technology connected to the Australian government. I have heard it leaks like a sieve anyway. If any government department wants to speak to me, they can do the contacting. Perhaps I will ignore them as they have ignored me.

I hope I'm a-goner by the time Big Brother brings in WEF's digital ID, and the cashless society.

Digital currency - no cash, also means goodbye to privacy; yet, there is no uproar about it. Millennials will accept anything. They don't even believe in democracy. But surely there are enough of us left who don't want our country going down the Communist China road!

The Sydney Morning Herald (Richard Glover) is already talking about cash in the past tense. Cash helpED; cash representED; jars WOULD often contain; cash LED to tipping, and so on.

And, we hear, Canada is the "leader" in the trend (is there really a trend, or is it just WEF brainwashing). Is ultra-Left and highly Woke Canada the sort of outfit we want to be led by?

ttbn: I don't think it's a problem specific to millenials. Most people just don't seem to care about such things until it bites them. Then, of course, they make a lot of noise about it, but it's too late.

Only a few ago I heard some "expert" on the GayBC telling us not to divulge any personal information when signing up on the internet. Well, try to sign up to your Bank, Centrelink infact any Govt related outfit at all & see how far you'll get by refusing to provide your birth date & address.
The one question I have never had answered is, why can you make a purchase online from some companies without providing your CCV number yet others will not let you buy without it ? It does not appear to me to be a technical issue so why can businesses demand we divulge that number ?
If this number is not required in a technical sense to complete a purchase then why does Govt not legislate that businesses can't demand so ?

Dear Individual,

I remember the Australian Democrats campaigning and succeeding on rejecting an Australia Card. But after a decade of the LNP who you so blindly supported the conservatives have gotten their way. Privacy of the masses has been pissed against the wall and it was all you lot who laid out the red carpet.