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Author: Ben Grubb

  • Optus announces bid for Defence satellite program

    Telco giant Optus will lead a bid alongside two multinational Defence contractors for a major satellite communications system project aimed at providing Australia’s military with sovereign capability in space.

    Optus and Defence contractors Raytheon Australia and Thales Australia join other bidders that include Lockheed Martin Australia, Airbus and Boeing Defence Australia.

    Flight VA218, which took the Optus-10 satellites into space in 2014.

    Potentially worth billions of dollars, with some industry estimates putting the cost of the project between $2 to $3 billion, Defence issued a tender for the JP9102 Australia Defence Communication System program on April 22. It forms part of the federal government’s $7 billion investment in Defence space capabilities over the next 10 years.

    Optus’ intention to bid comes as Defence extended on Friday the request for tender process by more than two months, citing COVID-19 lockdowns across Australia and overseas. Originally, bidders had until October 25 to respond but will now have until January 10 next year. The awarding of the contract isn’t expected until the third quarter of 2022.

    The scope of the project is to deliver, and support through life, the space, ground and control segments of sovereign satellite communications, according to the tender, “which will provide coverage of the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean regions including areas of strategic interest in the vicinity of Australia”.

    “The [Sovereign Satellite Communications] will increase the capacity, resilience, agility, and flexibility of Defence’s military SATCOM capability.”

    When announcing the project in March last year, former Defence minister Linda Reynolds said it would be “Australia’s first fully owned and controlled military satellite communication constellation”. However, tender documents have since indicated that the government is considering alternatives where it doesn’t necessarily own the satellites.

    “In September 2020, Defence advised…that ‘Defence ownership of the Mission System is required for a compliant proposal [to the proposed RFT]’. This advice has now changed,” tender documents published in February state. “Government has asked Defence to consider, as an option, non-Defence owned Satellites.

    “For clarity, Defence’s core capability requirements will remain common to both satellite ownership models including the requirement for Defence control of the entire system. All tenderers must submit a Defence owned and operated solution but may also offer, as an option, non-Defence owned satellites.”

    Raytheon Australia Managing Director Michael Ward said the company was ready to draw on its decades of expertise in delivering certified and integrated space systems as part of its bid.

    “Raytheon Australia has been delivering certified sovereign space solutions and complex system integration to the Australian Defence Force for decades, partnering with them and local industry to unlock the full potential of satellite data,” Mr Ward said.

    “We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Optus and Thales Australia to provide a next-generation satellite technology solution, and we look forward to offering our global space surveillance and operation capabilities to the Australian Government through this important partnership.”

    Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said the Optus bid would provide a unique opportunity to grow Australian skills in a high-tech sector.

    “Through Team AUSSAT’s bid, we will bring the best solution, capabilities and experience for the benefit of Australia, and the safety and security of all Australians.

    “The bid team…has a unique proposition being the only team with an unrivalled history of owning and operating satellites in Australia, by Australians, for Australians – drawing synergies from two partner companies with their exceptional pedigrees in building and delivering world-class Defence capabilities.”

    Thales Australia CEO Chris Jenkins said the team of Optus, Raytheon Australia and Thales Australia would deliver a “genuine sovereign Australian capability”.

    “Thales Australia has been a trusted partner of the ADF for more than three decades, delivering advanced secure communication solutions, and we’re proud to partner with Optus and Raytheon Australia on this project.”

    Since 1985, Optus has launched 10 satellites, operated 13 spacecraft, and provided support to over 100 international space programs. The telco has also flown the C1 Satellite since 2003, which provides critical mission capabilities for Defence’s operations and, at the time of launch, was the world’s largest Defence-civilian spacecraft.

    But the C1 Satellite is near its end of life, with Defence spending $40 million in 2017 to extend its life to 2027 by reconfiguring it to operate in an inclined orbit to reduce onboard fuel usage.

    Optus Satellite’s main gateway is in Belrose (NSW) with other operations in Lockridge (WA); Hume (ACT); and Regency Park (SA).

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  • Ransomware rise a concern: Privacy Commissioner

    Data breaches arising from ransomware incidents increased by 24 per cent in the first half of the year, prompting Australia’s Privacy Commissioner to warn that such attacks “are a significant cyber threat” that may be under-reported.

    The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) received 446 data breach notifications from January to June this year, according to its latest notifiable data breaches report, with 43 per cent resulting from cyber security incidents. Of the 445 total breaches, 46 were from ransomware, up from 37 notifications in the last reporting period.

    Angelene Falk
    Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk.

    Since the notifiable data breaches scheme began in February 2018, health service providers and the finance industry have consistently reported the most data breaches compared to any other industry sector. In the first half of this year, that trend remained the same, with health service providers reporting 85 data breaches. The second largest source of notifications was from the finance sector with 57 followed by legal, accounting and management services with 35, and the Australian government and the insurance sector with 34 breaches each.

    The rise in ransomware attacks comes as the federal government considers implementing a mandatory ransomware reporting scheme, where organisations that pay criminals to recover their files would be required to report this activity to the government. No government bill exists yet, but Labor’s Tim Watts is separately pushing his own that would require the same thing.

    Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said the increase in ransomware incidents was cause for concern.

    “We know from our work and from the Australian Cyber Security Centre that ransomware attacks are a significant cyber threat,” Commissioner Falk said.

    “The nature of these attacks can make it difficult for an entity to assess what data has been accessed or exfiltrated, and because of this we are concerned that some entities may not be reporting all eligible data breaches involving ransomware.

    “We expect entities to have appropriate internal practices, procedures and systems in place to assess and respond to data breaches involving ransomware, including a clear understanding of how and where personal information is stored across their network.”

    Australian security expert Troy Hunt, who runs the popular haveibeenpwned.com website, said ransomware had been around for decades, with the PC Cyborg Trojan in 1989 considered among the first. What had resulted in a rise in its use in recent times was a change in the business model of criminal enterprises and the way they had begun monetising stolen data.

    “I think one of the main driving factors is just simply return on investment,” Mr Hunt said of ransomware. “It’s just proven to be an enormously efficient way of monetising malicious software because, unfortunately, it does make good business sense to pay [a ransom].”

    Another reason it was becoming more popular was because of the types of ultimatums criminals were issuing to victims, resulting in new income streams.

    “It’s no longer just a ransom in terms of attacks against availability, where your files are locked and you need to pay for a key, but it’s also ransom with the threat of disclosure [of the stolen data].”

    One other “alarming” way criminals were pivoting, Mr Hunt said, was by not only demanding ransoms from companies attacked but by using personal information inside a data breach to demand ransoms from individuals whose data has been stolen. Vastaamo, a now-bankrupted Finland-based private psychotherapy practice, was the target of such an attack, where patients were contacted and asked to pay ransoms or else have their private patient files published.

    Mr Hunt said he expected sectors that remained at the top of the reporting list to be there because they were “heavily regulated” industries that were used to their reporting obligations under the law. This didn’t necessarily mean that they were the industries most impacted by known breaches, he said.

    In the first half of the year, the OAIC was also notified of a number of data breaches resulting from impersonation fraud, which involves a malicious actor impersonating another individual to gain access to an account, system, network or physical location. There were 35 notifications of social engineering or impersonation fraud during the reporting period.

    “The growth of data on the dark web unfortunately means that malicious actors can hold enough personal information to circumvent entities’ ‘know your customer’ and fraud monitoring controls,” Commissioner Falk said.

    “We expect entities to notify us when they experience impersonation fraud, where there is a likely risk of serious harm.

    “Entities should continually review and enhance their security posture to minimise the growing risk of impersonation fraud.”

    In May, Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzullo said he believed it was “likely” a mandatory ransomware reporting scheme would be rolled out soon.

    “I think…most advanced economies are at a point, whereby some means, whether it’s mandatory reporting combined with other measures, that a much more active defence posturing is going to be required simply because of the prevalence of the attacks,” Mr Pezzullo told a Senate Estimates hearing.

    While human error breaches decreased after a significant increase last reporting period, Commissioner Falk said entities need to remain alert to this risk, particularly the Australian Government where 74 per cent of breaches fell into this category.

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  • Resources sector can help Australian space push

    The technology developed by Australia’s resources sector to remotely operate mines could enable Australia to become a key player in providing similar services in space, a director from the Australian Space Agency says.

    In an online talk to the Australian Academy of Technology & Engineering this week, Australian Space Agency director of space capability Katherine Bennell said the agency was looking at how Australia could leverage its existing industries to help with space missions.

    Australian Space Agency’s Director of Space Capability Katherine Bennell.

    “Our resources sector leads the world in remotely operating facilities and autonomous systems in GPS denied environments, with difficult dust, extreme temperatures and minimal human interaction,” Ms Bennell said.

    “Of note, is their remote operations capability for simultaneously managing large complex systems and multiple diverse assets at once like entire mine sites from thousands of kilometres away. And it does this with high levels of operational uptime, safety and process efficiency.”

    She said the technical uniqueness of the resources sector’s way of operating was made possible by sophisticated software that ensured appropriate levels of autonomy and interoperability across all levels of the system architecture.

    The same levels of reliability are required for space missions, she said, and could form part of what the agency is calling “foundation services”, which would include monitoring and inspection, planning and logistics, civil construction, materials transport, cargo handling, and remote maintenance.

    “A key gap to unlock space progress is trusted autonomy, especially for robots to work collaboratively around or with each other and humans,” Bennell said.

    “If we can unlock that, a whole host of new space applications become possible.”

    It is the space agency’s view, she said, “that Australia could become a key provider of foundation services for exploration missions if we focus it as an activity”.

    “This is ambitious, for sure, but targeted near-term opportunities in growing lunar surface markets can be explored,” she said.

    At present, the agency is drafting several roadmaps it intends to release “over the coming months” that cover the space agency’s areas of focus, including positioning, navigation and timing; earth observation; communications technologies and services; space situational awareness and debris monitoring; leapfrog R&D; robotics and automation on Earth and in space; and access to space.

    “The rationale for deriving them was that Australia should leverage our strengths rather than reinventing the wheel to try and catch up to some other industries that have had decades and billions of dollars and invest,” Ms Bennell said.

    Asked by InnovationAus if the agency would ever run its own launch site like NASA or leave this to industry, Ms Bennell said the agency was commencing work on its access to space roadmap “shortly”, where it would be looking in-depth at this.

    “This roadmap is being done last as the others inform the case for it,” she said.

    Unlike other space agencies around the world that are often science focussed, Ms Bennell pointed out that the Australian Space Agency’s top-level KPIs were instead jobs and growth-related.

    “What this affords us is the ability to concentrate on growing sectors with a sustainable industry to realise new space market opportunities,” she said.

    Asked by an audience member about space career opportunities in Australia, she said that while it was still challenging to enter the industry locally, opportunities were growing far more than when she graduated from university in Sydney in 2007. “When I graduated, it was go overseas or basically change career. So I went overseas.”

    She recommended graduates seeking work be willing to relocate within Australia and look at which companies have recently been awarded agency grants and apply for jobs with them.

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  • Gov’t backs medical innovation, research with $79m

    Federal Health Minister Greg has announced $79 million in grants for three organisations to help develop new medical devices, medicines and digital health technologies, with half the money going to a venture capital firm focused on early-stage biomedical discoveries.

    The organisations receiving the grants are ANDHealth, a provider of accelerator, incubator and commercialisation programs for digital health technology companies; the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF), a life science venture capital fund which is run by Brandon Capital Partners; and MTPConnect, the government funded not-for-profit industry growth centre aiming to accelerate the medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector in Australia.

    Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt.

    The funds come from the Medical Research Commercialisation initiative, which is part of the Medical Research Future Fund – the federal government’s $20 billion 10-year investment in Australian health and medical research.

    MRCF received $39.5 million in total, with $19.75m to support preclinical medical research or medical innovation projects with commercial potential and the other $19.75m to support early clinical development of novel drugs, or novel uses for existing drugs, with commercial potential. The other two companies each received $19.75m.

    MRCF chief executive Dr Chris Nave said his company had already helped commercialise numerous Australian research findings using investment capital. 

    “For every 100 opportunities brought to us, only four pass the risk assessment for commercial investment. This doesn’t mean the remaining 96 are bad ideas and in many cases, it is simply because they are too early in their development and haven’t yet generated key supporting data,” Dr Nave said.

    “This funding will allow us to support many more ideas, earlier and we will provide both capital and commercial expertise to guide them through to the point where they are ready to be translated into clinical development and commercialisation, creating jobs and income and ultimately benefitting patients.”

    ANDHealth said the funding would support up to 25 high-growth-potential SMEs, which would be selected via a competitive process and will receive up to $1m of investment from the ANDHealth Digital Health Accelerator Fund, alongside a dedicated ANDHealth support team, access to a c-suite industry advisory panel and specialised services from pre-vetted suppliers.

    “This funding represents a significant milestone in the development of Australia’s digital health industry with the establishment of the first dedicated fund providing significant capital investment, alongside a proven program of global expertise and support, for Australia’s most promising digital health companies,” ANDHealth’s CEO Bronwyn Le Grice said.

    “Currently, the median amount of capital raised by Australian digital health companies is approximately $250,000. This program will be transformational in providing investment of up to $1m per company, alongside substantial support and expertise to accelerate the scale-up of these life-changing technologies.” 

    The types of technologies which will be supported under ANDHealth’s program include technologies that use computing platforms, connectivity, software and sensors, either alone or in combination with physical products, to treat, diagnose, cure, mitigate and/or prevent disease or other conditions.

    Health Minister Hunt said Australia’s researchers were world-leading, however many of their great ideas do not always receive the support needed to make the transition into practice. The Medical Research Commercialisation initiative aimed to address this gap “to help great ideas become products, which benefit patients in Australia and around the world”.

    “The initiative has already supported implementation of new products that are changing clinical practice and improving lives,” Minister Hunt said.

    “They include a novel device that improves the success rate of breast cancer surgery and an implant that promises to treat glaucoma for six months from a single injection, removing the need for daily drop therapy.”

    Minister Hunt has also announced two fellowships under the Medical Research Future Fund’s Researcher Exchange and Development within Industry initiative.

    Dr Ewan Millar from NSW Health Pathology will undertake a 24-month part-time project with New York-based digital diagnostics company Paige, working with worldwide project teams spread across three continents to develop skills in the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

    Dr Miller will focus on the application of deep learning AI to breast cancer biomarker development to improve behaviour predications and treatment response.

    Meanwhile, Dr Cindy Chia-Fan Shu from Kolling Institute at the University of Sydney Royal North Shore Hospital will undertake a 12-month project with Regeneus, to increase her skills in the translation of science.

    Dr Shu will focus on developing assays and models for pre-clinical trials for osteoarthritis treatments and progressing clinical trials and preparing regulatory submissions.

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  • Origin Energy launches startup program Originate

    Energy provider Origin has launched a new program in partnership with innovation hub Stone & Chalk to connect the corporate with startups which can help it make energy “easier, smarter and cleaner” for millions of customers.

    Origin said the partnership with Stone & Chalk, which brings start-ups together with potential corporate partners, investors and mentors, would allow it to look beyond energy and apply ideas from other verticals to its own use cases.

    Origin Energy’s Executive General Manager, Future Energy and Technology, Tony Lucas.

    Called Originate, the new program will select the best ideas to pitch to Origin’s future energy team. The energy provider, which has 4.2 million customers, will then provide the companies with the potential to work with it on trialling or prototyping ideas.

    The launch of the startup program comes as the federal government looks at extending the Consumer Data Right to energy providers, first earmarked in 2018, with new draft legislation released this week. The CDR extension to the energy sector will require providers, including Origin, to share certain information with customers, including metering data, by the end of 2022.

    The extension is designed to empower households and businesses to easily and securely share their energy data to find the best deal suited to their needs. But it will also allow a person or business to apply to become an Accredited Data Recipient (ADR), enabling new types of businesses to form that make use of such data.

    Origin has previously indicated in a submission to Treasury that it welcomes the scheme, saying the company “supports effective competition and mechanisms in place to assist third parties and consumers in using data relevant to them to compare and select energy solutions and their providers”.

    “However, there is a need to fully assess which datasets are of value to customers, the costs and benefits of each dataset as well as the privacy risks of including the data under the scheme.”

    In recent times, Origin has joined a growing number of providers to offer either bundled energy and broadband, or energy and phone plans, including AGL, Dodo, Kogan Energy, Origin and Sumo. It has also branched out into electric vehicles.

    Meanwhile, rival AGL has its AGL Next program, which is focusing on electric vehicles, startup partnerships and investments and explorations of other customer problems.

    “We have a long track record working with startups both in Australia and internationally, helping to foster ideas that capitalise on growing trends including the convergence of data and energy, growth in renewables, storage and green fuels,” said Tony Lucas, Origin’s Executive General Manager, Future Energy & Technology.

    “Over the past three years, we’ve reviewed more than 2,500 start-ups and ideas, and know what we are looking for in terms of ideas that we can nurture and help to take that crucial next step.

    “We want to tap into the local tech community which we’re confident has ideas on how to make energy easier, smarter and cleaner for our customers.”

    Origin was a founding member of the global Free Electrons startup accelerator program and says it has already commercialised ideas such as Origin Spike, its gamified demand response program developed with US start-up OhmConnect. The program rewards members for meeting energy-saving goals when demand on the electricity grid is high. If a customer beats their forecast, points can be earned that can then be redeemed for PayPal cash or gift cards.

    Stone & Chalk General Manager for Sydney Marie-Anne Lampotang said the partnership with Origin was an opportunity to help shape the future of energy delivery in Australia.

    “We will be connecting our start-ups that offer a range of innovative solutions that can help innovate across Origin Energy’s technology stack,” Ms Lampotang said.

    “Stone & Chalk is focused on shaping the future of emerging tech sectors by catalysing the commercial success across our impact network and helping them on the next stage of their journey to scale their businesses. Origin’s Originate program may be the accelerator that boosts one of our start-ups into its next stage of growth and we are excited to be partnering with them.”

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  • Microsoft enters Australian space race

    Microsoft Australia’s Lynn McDonald is on a mission to help the local space industry take off and “break the mould”, with an aim to have Microsoft as one of the key players powering it.

    The former US Air Force colonel and CIA officer has been heavily involved in the space industry for 25 years and was recently hired as Microsoft’s Azure space lead for Australia.

    Lynn McDonald, Azure Space Lead, Microsoft Australia.

    “I retired in 2019 as a colonel from the Air Force and I spent my entire time in all things space,” she tells InnovationAus of her career’s history. “So [in] space operations, satellite operations, and space launch. I led operational testing out of the Pentagon, and for some major space programs like GPS, which we all know and kind of use in our daily lives.”

    Her local appointment followed her application for the Global Talent visa – a permanent visa for people who have an internationally recognised record of exceptional and outstanding achievement in an eligible field. Once accepted, she flew to Canberra in March this year and completed two weeks’ mandatory quarantine.

    Despite many Australian space companies locating themselves in Adelaide at innovation precinct Lot Fourteen, including the Australian Space Agency, Ms McDonald said it was decided she would be based in the nation’s capital as a central location to engage with her team spread across Australia. Canberra was also chosen, she said, because “it’s a hub for Defence in government and our support and enabling technologies and engagement with Defence and government are important, so this seemed like a natural landing spot”.

    Now several months into her new role, Ms McDonald this week launched the Microsoft for Space Startups Australia program, which provides eligible space startups with credits to the Azure cloud, access to a broad range of Microsoft technologies, and the opportunity to work with Microsoft specialists, sales teams and mentors to support and accelerate their companies.

    Ms McDonald is also keen to tout Microsoft’s wares to Defence, which recently announced it would establish a Space Division within the Royal Australian Air Force in early 2022 after being allocated $7 billion by the government to improve how it operates in space.

    “We’re at this really exciting time to be on the forefront of developing technology, not only as the industry stands up and rapidly evolves, but also as Defense is looking at sovereign capabilities in space, and with space technology,” Ms McDonald said. “And so the stand up of the Space Division … that is an important area, and we are absolutely focused on delivering the capability.”

    Microsoft hopes to support local industry by enabling investment, partnering with businesses, and boosting innovation in areas like space R&D, artificial intelligence, machine learning, edge processing, and automation.

    Ms McDonald and her team also appear on a mission to talk up the features of cloud-based computer processing for space, with a focus on convincing Defence of its opportunities.

    “Coming from my background in Defense and government in space, I’ve seen the traditional ways of delivering programs [using] on-premise systems, in very hardware-focused systems, and what you get and what you don’t get,” Ms McDonald said.

    “When you start virtualising and building out systems that are software-defined, it just opens up the aperture … for building flexible, open architectures that can rapidly evolve with technology and with demands and the environment that Defense will face and … the ability to integrate those systems from a Five Eyes perspective,” she said.

    “It really just opens up that opportunity in terms of building flexible and secure architectures in cloud platforms.”

    She said Australia has an opportunity to “break the mould” with space.

    “Whether it’s Defence or commercial industry in the Australian space industry, there really is this fresh slate to just do it in a uniquely Australian way.”

    One of the first to benefit from Microsoft’s startup program is Office of Planetary Observations, a Melbourne-based company whose mission is to create greener, more liveable and sustainable cities. The company uses satellite-sourced data to provide insights that landscape architects and town planners need to promote urban greening and to build climate-resilient cities. This includes providing details within an online dashboard about vegetation cover and health, land surface temperature and maps of the tree canopy in a specific area.

    One of Office of Planetary Observations’ dashboards.

    Another startup to receive Microsoft’s support is Spiral Blue, which is building an onboard computer for Earth observation satellites that processes images on the satellite as they are collected. Currently, due to bandwidth constraints, most processing is done on the ground, meaning only a small fraction of data that could be collected and turned into useful information is sent back.

    Ms McDonald applauded local space research and companies like Spiral Blue that are figuring out how to optimise the processing of satellite data.

    “Where we can push that [processing] out to on-orbit satellites or on our platforms is really where we can start optimising the functionality and capability of these technologies,” she said.

    “When you can push some of that to the satellite, you start closing the time factor … of getting to critical points of data, and priority pieces of data on the satellite.”

    Another area she believed Australia could become a global leader was in “exploring space technology uses for sustainability, for regenerative agriculture, for water quality monitoring, for bushfire detection and mitigation, and for sustainable operations”. She also said Australia was well advanced in its research into smaller satellites, known as nanosats.

    “When I attended the Space Research Conference in 2019, a number of university space research programs were there [and] the students were … presenting their work.

    “I was completely blown away. They’re doing phenomenal work in the university space research programs here. And so I think there’s this opportunity to really leverage that.”

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  • New laws to expand CDR to energy sector

    Electricity providers will be required to allow households and businesses to access their energy data under draft laws expanding the Consumer Data Right to the sector, released by the federal government for industry consultation.

    The proposed changes released on Tuesday will expand the existing Consumer Data Right (CDR) beyond banking and into the energy sector and also include “minor” amendments to ensure that the existing rules operate as intended. The government first announced its intention to include energy data in the CDR in May 2018.

    Jane Hume
    Digital Economy Minister Jane Hume.

    Stakeholders are encouraged to provide their feedback on the draft laws by 13 September 2021, meaning industry will have 28 days to respond.

    Digital Economy Minister Jane Hume said the new laws would empower households and businesses to easily and securely share their energy data to find the best deal suited to their needs.

    The proposed changes will see energy consumers start to benefit from data sharing by the end of 2022, the minister said.

    “This will enhance transparency and put consumers in the driving seat when it comes to comparing energy offers so they can find the best offer,” Senator Hume said.

    Enabling consumers access to share their energy consumption patterns will also encourage greater competition, she said.

    At present, the CDR is available to customers of all big four banks. Commonwealth Bank customers, for instance, can now access NAB and Westpac data within the CommBank app.

    The release of the draft laws comes soon after Treasury commenced consultation in late July with the telco sector about implementing the CDR, and a broader assessment of which industries should be subject to the laws next. One of the July consultation papers states that the government is committed to an accelerated economy-wide roll-out of the CDR, with “a new sector to be assessed and designated every year”.

    As part of its consultation, the government highlighted potential future sectors that could be subject to the CDR, including general insurance, groceries, health insurance, loyalty schemes, non-bank lenders, superannuation. transport, government, health, education and agriculture.

    MinterEllison lawyers Anthony Borgese and Kirsten Laurendet wrote recently that for data holders in affected sectors, preparing for compliance with the CDR will require significant IT and regulatory efforts and “will likely be expensive in both cost and time”.

    “This has already been noticeable within the banking sector, with many ADIs [authorised deposit-taking institutions] falling short of the deadlines for CDR compliance,” they wrote.

    “As such, organisations within the energy and telecommunications sectors should begin preparing and planning now for when they will have to soon also comply with the CDR regime.”

    But the MinterEllison lawyers also pointed out that the CDR could be a boon for some businesses.

    “A person or business may apply to become an Accredited Data Recipient (ADR), so they are able to receive this valuable consumer data in return,” they said.

    “This means that whilst the CDR is a consumer-centric model, it also presents an exciting opportunity for businesses to innovate and improve their services and products so that they are able to benefit in conjunction with consumers under this regime.”

    May’s budget included $111.3 million to “accelerate” the rollout of the CDR, following frustrations over slow progress in the banking sector.

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  • Young VCs back ‘overlooked’ Aussie startups with $10m fund

    The founders of a $10 million venture capital fund and accelerator who say the industry’s traditional startup funding model is too risk-averse at the early stages and isn’t built to support new-age entrepreneurs have revealed their first investments.

    Claiming to be Australia’s “youngest venture capital fund and startup accelerator”, Galileo Ventures was founded in 2020 by entrepreneurs James Alexander (founder of University of Sydney startup accelerator INCUBATE) and Hugh Stephens (founder of global social media management platform Sked Social) – two 30-somethings with a passion for mentoring early-stage startups.

    Galileo Ventures founders James Alexander and Hugh Stephens.

    Mr Alexander said the fund, which has revealed its first eight investments that will each receive between $200,000 and $300,000, would provide a fresh take on investing in emerging founders, who he said are too frequently “underestimated” and “overlooked” by traditional VC firms.

    “The world’s next biggest ideas are hidden in the next generation of emerging founders, but the current VC model isn’t built to support new-age entrepreneurs,” Mr Alexander said.

    “Much of the original Australian investment community is too risk-averse at the earliest stages, often doesn’t quite grasp the next wave of tech and quite frankly lacks diversity.

    “As the only millennial and openly identifying LGBTIQ+ founders of an Australian VC fund (and few globally), we’re committed to bringing world-class support and capital that later-stage VCs like A16Z or Blackbird provide, at the most crucial early stages.”

    Galileo received over 500 applications in its first six months of operation and startups it has chosen to invest in include: AllyAssist, a female-founded disability-assistance platform, bringing a new workforce of therapy assistants to people with disabilities; VectorAI, a tool that uses machine learning to help implement search, recommendation, prediction and more with complex data; and Space Services, which combines technology used in games and advanced simulation software to help engineering teams make space safer and more efficient.

    The other startups Galileo has invested in include Wriveted, an artificial intelligence “bookbot” (virtual reading assistant) aimed at boosting literacy rates that has signed on schools and libraries; Tixel, a ticket resale marketplace; Lemonade, a social commerce app for events; Varicon, a construction forecasting platform; and Sizle, a document sharing tool.

    The eight investments comprise the first of 40 Galileo hopes to make over the next three years.

    “There’s a misconception that young Australia doesn’t have the tech talent to produce more unicorns,” Mr Alexander said, referring to startups that reach $1 billion in value.

    “The talent is there; we just need to get better at nurturing and prepping emerging founders to win.

    “Young, inexperienced founders simply don’t get the right support from ‘angel’ investors. We rarely see successful companies emerge from short-form accelerator and education programs, and that desperately needs to change. Galileo aims to break down that model and actually help build the next Canvas and Atlassians from all walks of life.”

    Galileo will begin the assessment process for its next wave of investments in the coming months. It welcomes early-stage founders, particularly minority and diverse-identifying founders.

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  • Climate startups a focus of latest Startmate intake

    Climate-focused innovation and gaming are among focus areas of Australian startup accelerator Startmate’s largest ever intake of companies revealed this week as part of its winter cohort.

    The nineteen companies, which comprise six from New Zealand, also includes ventures spanning AgTech, mental health, the creator economy, cybersecurity and FinTech.

    Backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures, Startmate’s climate stream is focused on launching the next wave of companies working on technologies the accelerator hopes will have large atmospheric C02-equivalent reduction.

    Startmate principal Lauren Capelin

    The climate stream is made up of AgTech artificial intelligence startup Agtuary, personal care startup baresop, storage-as-a-service solution EnergyBank Limited, robotics startup Ripe Robotics, and renewable energy storage startup Vertus Energy Limited.

    Other members of the latest intake include Australian fintech startup Flux, a gamified financial education platform that rewards young Australians for adopting positive financial habits; New Zealand-based workplace psychological safety platform chnnl, which identifies potential problems, negative trends, bullying and burnout to help employees and employers alike; Vets on Call, a platform aimed at changing the way vet services are acquired and delivered; and Opvia, which aims to help B2B organisations sell more by making quoting fast, easy and accurate.

    Startmate operates in a growing space of incubators and accelerators that include Skalata Ventures, Cicada Innovations, Incubate, CyRise, Galileo Ventures and the Founder Institute.

    Universities have also been on the accelerator bandwagon for some time now, with the Swinburne Accelerator Program, Sydney University’s Incubate, Melbourne University’s Melbourne Accelerator Program, and UNSW’s Founders 10x among them.

    Startmate’s principal Lauren Capelin told InnovationAus the pandemic had no effect on application numbers, with 543 in total – 470 from Australian companies and 73 from New Zealand.

    “There’s a real mix of enterprise and software-as-a-service businesses, but also a bunch of interesting and more frontier technology going on,” Ms Capelin said. “So companies working in gaming and the metaverse space, and we have some people exploring psychedelics in treating mental health.”

    The company working on psychedelics, Psylo, claims to be Australia’s first psychedelic biotech company. It believes the way we treat mental illness is broken and is on a mission to develop psychedelic medicines to redefine how mental illness is treated.

    Opvia team (L-R): Paul Leung, Jarrad Seers and Matt Hollis.

    Ms Capelin said Startmate’s courses have been delivered remotely since the 2020 cohort last year.

    “There are aspects which are obviously disappointing that we can’t do, which is essentially just ensuring that everybody can build these forums face-to-face as a cohort,” she said.

    “But I think the way we’ve been able to leverage technology to offer a fairly similar experience in the constraints that we have has still been a huge upside.

    “That kind of remoteness keeps people focused on the job at hand, which is actually running their own business, and then tapping into the mentor community and the peer support, and those accountability processes that ultimately make Startmate so special.”

    Ms Capelin said state governments, such as Victoria’s, had been doing “great work” to support local ecosystems. LaunchVic recently poured $1.8 million into Startmate to expand into Victoria, bring the state government’s total investment to more than $4 million into the program.

    The founder of baresop, Prisca Ongonga-Daehn, is tackling the challenge of single-use plastic packaging with zero-waste, powder-to-foam hand, body and hair washes.

    “Traditional hand and body soap products are 90 per cent water, and 10 per cent active ingredients. All that water means so much unnecessary packaging,” Ms Ongonga-Daehn said. “I am on a mission to change that.”

    Meanwhile, EnergyBank offers a solution for electricity companies allowing renewable energy to compete with, and displace, fossil fuel generation.

    “We have designed our technology to be capable of economically enabling the full decarbonisation of electricity grids in Australia and beyond,” EnergyBank co-founder Tim Hawkey said.

    Since launching in 2019, Startmate’s climate stream has had 12 companies complete the program, which collectively have gone on to raise approximately $27 million. In October 2020, Australia’s Clean Energy Innovation Fund backed the stream to the tune of $300,000 over three years.

    Currently in week four of 12, Startmate’s startups will receive mentorship and support from its network of Australian and NZ mentors, as well as an investment from Startmate itself. For companies that haven’t previously raised a round, Startmate invests $75,000 at a $1 million valuation (in exchange for 7.5 per cent equity).

    The latest cohort will present to a global audience of founders, mentors and investors on 7 October.

    Startmate says it has invested in more than 150 startups over its 11-year history. It estimates its alumni have a collective valuation of $1 billion and has created more than 1400 jobs.

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  • Expect more web regulation after Apple’s photo move

    Opinion: When I started in tech journalism more than a decade ago in 2010, I revealed that the federal government was considering introducing metadata retention. The changes meant select data about Australians’ web histories would be stored and logged for two years.

    The controversial laws were shelved by Labor when it was in power but eventually, after a change of government and a further push by law enforcement, a bill was passed in 2015. The wedge needed to push a hesitant Labor opposition into supporting them was the December 2014’s Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney’s CBD.

    “Your chances that your data will be viewed by law enforcement is low,” AFP Assistant Commissioner Tim Morris said at the time. “Those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.”

    This was despite law enforcements agencies making more than 300,000 applications for our metadata each year, without a warrant.

    Since then, we’ve seen Canberra, at the request of police, spy agencies and intellectual property rights holders, chip away at the lack of regulation of multiple internet technologies.

    This has included requiring assistance to pry open encrypted smart devices or scrambled messages; blocking of websites to do with pirated movies or music; restricting access to Interpol’s “worst of the worst” list via a then relatively unused telecommunications law (sub-section 313 of the telco act), to a present debate on critical infrastructure and whether the government should be given the power to allow its spy agencies to take control of computer networks of companies it deems manage such infrastructure (in the event of a cyber intrusion or to defend against one).

    A separate bill currently before Parliament would give more powers to federal police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to access computers and networks of those suspected of conducting criminal activity online. This has prompted concerns about innocent people who might get swept up in it and a perceived lack of proper judicial oversight.

    As part of the new “identify and disrupt” bill, new network activity warrants would allow authorities to hack into devices and networks of groups of individuals suspected of taking part in criminal activity online when their identities are not known. A new warrant would also allow the disruption of data through modification and deletion “to frustrate the commission of serious offences”, and new account takeover warrants would also be introduced.

    Amid all this, we’ve also seen multiple cases of abuse of data by law enforcement. The check-in apps each state has been using during the COVID pandemic? Queensland thought it’d be a great idea to use that data to investigate a reported theft of an officer’s gun and Taser from a regional pub despite assurances it would only be used for contact tracing purposes.

    Where there’s data, the temptation by third parties to access it will always be there.

    The same state government also used metadata to access the private information of cadets to determine whether they were sleeping with one another or faking sick days.

    Queensland – I’m not sure what it is about this state and privacy – was also among the first to start taking advantage of the data trail left behind by smart public transport travel cards, not just to find criminals, but to track down witnesses of crimes who may not necessarily wish to talk.

    Back in 1997, former US president Bill Clinton said the internet “should be a place where government makes every effort … not to stand in the way, to do no harm”. But he hastened to add that “a hands-off approach to electronic commerce must not mean indifference when it comes to raising and protecting children.”

    This brings me to Apple’s latest move – to identify photos uploaded to its online storage service iCloud that match against known child abuse imagery.

    It has all the hallmarks of being a smartly designed technology and does seem to have been created with some privacy mechanisms in mind. For example, it uses a “hashing” algorithm of known abuse material to identify imagery on people’s accounts and will only then alert Apple reviewers when an undisclosed threshold of images is reached.

    But it rightly has privacy advocates worried about what could come next. What starts off as a technology trained to search for a “worst of the worst” list of images could soon become used to search for other types of content stored on people’s phones. Another feature allows parents to have naked or sexually explicit imagery blurred on a child’s phones.

    “All it would take to widen the narrow backdoor that Apple is building is an expansion of the machine learning parameters to look for additional types of content, or a tweak of the configuration flags to scan, not just children’s, but anyone’s accounts,” the Electronic Frontiers Foundation wrote. “That’s not a slippery slope; that’s a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change.”

    Apple says it will reject government advances, but laws are laws.

    Scope creep seems to be one of the main concerns often raised by privacy advocates, but one which is frequently ignored by politicians, rarely addressed properly in legislation and often relegated to explanatory memorandums that describe a bill and its “intention”.

    One example of website blocking scope creep is Australia’s tertiary regulator, which is now seeking telcos to restrict access to a site allegedly used by students for cheating.

    What I think all of this signals is that we’re entering a new age of the internet where further regulation will become commonplace, and corporations will be leaned on by governments to enact new policies rather than governments necessarily creating new laws to force change.

    We have seen this already with YouTube, Twitter and Facebook enacting bans following the spread of misinformation and online conspiracies. Rather than following laws, the companies are attempting to meet community and government standards and expectations. It’s voluntary regulation without new laws.

    Mostly, I think changes that encroach more on an individual’s privacy will become accepted, especially if convenience continues to be a priority over privacy.

    But will users boycott Apple over its latest photo move? Probably not. Until trust is broken or there’s a further erosion of their privacy, they won’t. But by then it might be too late.

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  • NSW may add vaccine record to Service NSW app

    The NSW government is exploring whether it can integrate federal COVID-19 immunisation records into its Service NSW app.

    The potential integration comes as it also moves ahead with its plan to have a digital birth certificate prototype ready by the end of the year.

    Once NSW begins to open up after lockdown, it’s expected some types of venues will require patrons to provide proof of vaccination in addition to checking in via a QR code, on top of requiring ID if they’re an establishment like a nightclub. This type of experience is already required in some countries overseas that have begun opening up.

    NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello with a prototype of a digital birth certificate.

    “That is a very clunky experience to essentially open three different apps just to get through the front door,” NSW Customer Service and Digital Minister Victor Dominello told InnovationAus.

    He said he was hoping to “work with the federal government” to provide people choice.

    “That is, if they want to have it [vaccination records] on their Service NSW app, they can. If they don’t, they don’t have to.”

    He has also suggested that such a record in the Service NSW app could detail whether someone was fully or partially vaccinated against COVID-19.

    Meanwhile, the minister said digitising birth certificates would be “critical” to digital identity as his department works on creating one.

    “We hope to have a [digital birth certificate] prototype out in the market before the end of the year,” he said.

    “And if we bed that down, we then unlock a lot of problems around, for example, cybersecurity.”

    It would be important that NSW gets digital identity right, he said, because “we can build a lot of resilience and help people out in the event that there’s been a breach”.

    The way the digital certificate was being designed at present would mean entities who receive it would receive less information than they do now.

    “When you provide people with your birth certificate right now, it contains a whole load of information that quite frankly they don’t need,” the minister siad.

    With the digital version, all citizens would need to do is show their digital birth certificate and a QR code and if proof is required for record-keeping purposes, recipients would get a generated log number that proves that a person has validated their certificate with them.

    This would mean that third parties don’t actually store original birth certificates, which the minister said was another way of protecting digital identities.

    On another front, Mr Dominello remained optimistic that NSW’s own services would one day act as a portal into federal government services and vice versa.

    “We’re working with the federal government on that,” he said. “So I’ll be guided by them [on a timeframe].

    “We’re ready, willing and able. But obviously, it’s a much more complicated task for them because they just don’t have NSW to deal with; they’ve got all the other states and territories as well.

    “I have high regard for Minister [Stuart] Robert [in charge of digital at a federal level]. And I remember discussing with him where we both agreed there should be no wrong door to government.

    “People don’t care whether it’s state, federal, local. They just want better service delivery.”

    Best known as being the minister on a mission to get rid of paper, often sharing his ideas on LinkedIn for feedback, Mr Dominello has been on a roll of late in digitising his state.

    “If you love paper, do origami,” he said, adding: “I love paper in that form, but I think paper is just an almost criminal waste when it’s used to guide process.”

    He said one of the silver linings of the pandemic was that there had been an “enormous growth” in digital maturity and understanding in the last eighteen months.

    “Eighteen months ago, I was banging the drum and trying to sell the case and trying to say how important [digital] is not just for economic efficiency but for customer experience.

    “Now people understand that; there are not as many roadblocks now.”

    Speaking on why his department recently decided to roll out physical QR codes for checking in, he said it was because of feedback received from the community about those without smartphones.

    “There was a lot of feedback that … there is still a cohort of our society that either don’t have smartphones or have old smartphones that can’t even read QR cards,” he said.

    “So I thought, listening to the concerns of the community, and the feedback we were receiving, there must be a better way.”

    On LinkedIn, he said he apologised for not including everyone in his original thinking of the QR code check-in rollout.

    “Whilst the check-in card is good – it also illuminates a personal blind spot,” he wrote. “In my desire to hasten the digital journey – I did not properly reflect on the inclusion piece. I apologise for this.”

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  • Angelene Falk reappointed as privacy tsar

    Angelene Falk will spend at least another three years in her role as Australian Information and Privacy Commissioner after Attorney-General Michaelia Cash confirmed her reappointment.

    Ms Falk’s re-appointment through to August 2024 comes as the government searches for a Freedom of Information Commissioner after it provided $1 million in funding in the May budget to establish the position, and as the nation’s Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) battles an ever-growing freedom-of-information case backlog.

    As established in 2010, the OAIC was meant to have three separate commissioners – for information, privacy and freedom of information. But Coalition funding cuts in 2015 left just a privacy commissioner to perform all of these roles, which has remained the case in the years since, with Ms Falk currently serving in all three roles.

    On Friday, as the OAIC announced it was investigating Optus, the government announced Ms Falk’s re-appointment.

    Angelene Falk
    Reappointed: Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk

    “I am pleased to announce that Ms Angelene Falk has been reappointed as Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner for a period of three years,” Attorney-General Cash said on Friday.

    “Since her appointment in 2018, Ms Falk has effectively led the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

    “She has worked to increase the Australian public’s trust and confidence in the protection of personal information by promoting the understanding of privacy issues and effectively resolving privacy complaints and investigations.”

    Commissioner Falk said she was honoured to continue to lead the OAIC.

    “This is a pivotal time for both privacy and freedom of information,” Ms Falk said.

    “Over the next 3 years, we will uphold and advance these rights to enable citizens and businesses to safeguard personal information and harness its benefits, for individuals and the economy, while we encourage an open-by-design approach to information access across government.

    “This includes regulating the online environment and high privacy impact technologies, expanding the Consumer Data Right, advising on and implementing proposed reforms to the Privacy Act 1988, and increasing proactive publication of government-held information.”

    Ms Falk was admitted as a legal practitioner to the Supreme Court of NSW in 1998 and holds an Honours Degree of Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts from Monash University, a Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Law from Melbourne University and a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice.

    Ms Falk has held senior positions in the OAIC since 2012.

    with Denham Sadler

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  • Australian startup investment tops $3b, but ‘risk’ looms

    Venture capital funding tipped into Australian startups rose to $3.4 billion ($US2.5 billion) in the past financial year, up from $2.6 billion ($US1.95 billion) in the previous year despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

    That’s according to the latest KPMG Venture Pulse report, which reported a record 327 Australian venture capital investment deals over the financial year between 1 July 2020 and 1 July 2021, up from 311 over the previous 12 months. The funding information was based on data provided by the financial database Pitchbook.

    There was a record quarter of VC funding, according to KPMG. Data provided by PitchBook. Note: figures in US dollars.

    Amanda Price, head of KPMG High Growth Ventures, said the investment environment for Australian high-growth ventures “had never been stronger”.

    “Alongside the continued progression of Australia’s new unicorns — startups that have achieved a valuation of over $1 billion — we have also seen record seed rounds raised,” Ms Price said.

    During the year, startups such as insurer Honey, plant-based meat and dairy alternative Nourish Ingredients, and e-commerce company Carted attracted over $10 million of early-stage funding.

    “As we look to Australia’s post-pandemic future, the emergence of these digital disruptors has massive potential to contribute to the nation’s economy,” Ms Price said.

    Benjamin Chong, partner at Australian venture capital firm Right Click Capital, said the increase in investments over the past year validated decisions taken by the federal government five years ago to support innovative new companies. But he said there was a “risk that the early good work will be undone”.

    “Governments at all levels need to commit to a long-term program of research and development and other incentives so we can keep and attract talented individuals,” Mr Chong said.

    “Our higher education system needs to be bolstered and we should be opening our country to more skilled migrants who can fuel this growth. The current blocking of the borders is making it difficult to build a competitive Australia.”

    Niki Scevak, partner at venture capital firm Blackbird, said local startups were receiving record-breaking funding “because Australian startups are creating record-breaking amounts of progress”.

    “Our ecosystem has already produced three generational companies in Atlassian, Canva and Afterpay with the prospects for many more in the coming decades,” Mr Scevak said.

    Despite this, Mr Scevak used the release KPMG’s report to point out a lack of proper data on early-stage startup funding.

    The lack of quality data to track startup progress was a point recently noted in a speech by Andrew Liveris, chairman and chief executive officer of chemical company Dow Chemical.

    “It is unlikely that we will produce enough companies to increase our chances of launching companies onto [the list of the 20 largest companies by market capitalisation] if we do not change the trend reported by the Startup Muster Report of 2018, which featured analysis by CSIRO’s Data61,” Liveri said.

    “The report shows growth in startups in Australia until 2017 followed by a sharp decline of 12 per cent to 2018. I cannot tell what’s happened since then, because after five years of data gathering, the research is no longer funded.”

    Mr Scevak said seed rounds used to be announced to the press when there were more media outlets eager to cover even the smallest of financings.

    “That no longer is the case, so most rounds go unannounced and so most services that catalogue startup financings become inaccurate,” he said, pointing to the Cut Through Venture monthly newsletter, run as a personal project by corporate startup program manager Chris Gillings, as one of the few recent attempts to keep abreast of Australian and New Zealand venture funding.

    James Alexander of Sydney-based startup accelerator Galileo Ventures, which invests $200,000 in early-stage companies, agreed that funding reports often didn’t paint the full picture.

    “Industry-wise, we’re super cautious on data from any local or international reports, especially from services like Pitchbook, because it typically under-reports the activity,” Mr Alexander said.

    “PitchBook doesn’t even have most of our 10 investments; I think it’s got one of the 10 investments we’ve done this year.”

    He said Australia was seeing record funding “because there’s a record amount of very valuable businesses”.

    “As long as that keeps happening, we’ll see more capital come in,” Mr Alexander said.

    In recent years, Mr Alexander said he’d noticed some traditional funds had moved to later-stage investments, leaving a small gap in the market for seed investors like Galileo.

    “The bigger funds, as they’ve gotten bigger, are typically signing fewer tiny, tiny cheques just by nature of the fact that they’re much bigger now and they have to deploy more capital,” he said.

    Labor’s industry and innovation spokesman Ed Husic said that when you looked at what’s providing a boost to the pool of funds available for local talent, it was in large part superannuation.

    “It stands in contrast to any measure or financial assistance brought forward by the Coalition,” Mr Husic said.

    “It’s paradoxical that the Coalition is spending a hell of a lot of time undermining Australia’s super system while neglecting to correct shortcomings in their own supports for early-stage innovation.”

    Any upward trend in venture capital investment was positive news, Mr Husic said.

    “But we need government to have the same confidence,” he said.

    “We have a Prime Minister who consistently maintains that we should be the best adopters of offshore technology and innovations, rather than creators, and supporters of our own.”

    Industry and Innovation Minister Christian Porter was approached for comment but did not respond before deadline.

    Five of the top Australian venture capital investments in financial year 2020/21

    Company Deal size ($US) Industry State
    Airwallex

    $100m

    		 Financial Software VIC
    Brighte

    $100m

    		 Specialized Finance NSW
    Athena

    $90m

    		 Consumer Finance NSW
    SafetyCulture $73m Business/Productivity Software QLD
    Canva $71m Multimedia and Design Software NSW

    Five of the top Australian seed round startup investments in financial year 2020/21

    Company Deal size ($US) Industry State
    Honey $12m Property and Casualty Insurance NSW
    Nourish Ingredients $11m Food Products NSW
    Carted $10m Social/Platform Software QLD
    Pyn $8m Communication Software NSW
    Vitruvian $6m Recreational Goods WA

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  • NSW revamps COVID check-in app, unveils physical card

    Checking into NSW venues and managing check-in histories will soon become easier thanks to software updates to the Service NSW app and a new physical COVID-19 check-in card.

    NSW Digital and Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello said users of the app would soon be able to register for a COVID-19 check-in card which they could present to supermarkets and other essential retail businesses to scan as an alternative to checking in digitally or signing in via paper if they don’t have a smartphone.

    “The days of seeking out somewhere to manually sign in with pen and paper should be an absolute last resort,” Mr Dominello said on Monday.

    Citizens can download and print their COVID-19 check-in card or have a plastic card mailed to them.

    Their contact details will be stored within the QR code, which will prepopulate the sign-in webform when scanned by the business.

    Belgin Tran, program director of project delivery and enterprise change at Service NSW, said in a Q&A that it was “not mandatory for businesses to accept the COVID-19 check-in card”.

    “However, it’s highly recommended to enable quick and easy electronic registration,” Mr Tran said.

    In response to customer demand, Mr Dominello said that Service NSW was also rolling out two further enhancements to the Service NSW app.

    The first will allow customers to review their check-out histories, enabling them to add check-out times if they either forget to check out or they checked into another venue before checking out. This will fix the issue that exists at present where the app doesn’t allow users to check out of venues if they have already checked into another one.

    “It is critical our contact tracers have the most accurate information possible so they can act quickly to contact casual and close contacts, which is why we’re making it possible for customers to review their check-in history and enter the correct check out time after the fact,” Mr Dominello said 

    The second feature will make it easier for customers to sign into the Service NSW app while wearing a mask.

    “Customers will also be able to opt to extend their login period for the Service NSW app to up to 4 hours, making it faster and easier to check-in without having to re-enter a PIN or to remove their facemask to activate Face ID each time,” the minister said.

    The additional features will be available inside the Service NSW app from mid-August.

    Customers will be able to register for their COVID-19 check-in card via the Service NSW website or by calling 13 77 88 from August 13 and can opt to receive it via email to print at home, or via postal mail.

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