Promoting And Protecting Digital Rights Since 1994
EFA is an independent non-profit association that relies on membership subscriptions and donations. If you’re concerned about digital rights in Australia, please join or donate today.
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Copyright Bill Deeply Flawed
Nov 2006: EFA has made a written submission to the Senate Committee inquiry into the Copyright Amendment Bill 2006. The Bill, in its current form, contains a deeply flawed and over-broad implementation of the Technical Protection Measures provisions of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. The Bill will also introduce new purported rights of time-shifting and format-shifting which are much narrower than those existing in the United States, and contains…
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IPND Bill introduced
The Telecommunications Amendment (Integrated Public Number Database) Bill 2006 was introduced into Federal Parliament. This Bill will improve privacy protection for telephone subscriber information stored in the IPND and will implement a situation substantially similar to that advocated in EFA’s July 2005 submission to the ACMA concerning data sourced from the IPND. Unfortunately however the Government has not addressed the related issue of Sensis’s collection of data directly from telephone…
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Telemarketing Standard
EFA sent a submission in response to the ACMA’s Discussion Paper on an Industry Standard for the Making of Telemarketing Calls. The ACMA is required by the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 to develop a national telemarketing standard to provide consumers with greater certainty regarding the minimum level of behaviour they can expect from unsolicited telemarketing, opinion polling and survey calls (including from entitities exempt from compliance with the…
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UnSmart Access Card
EFA is deeply concerned by the planned rollout of a so-called Access Card smart card linked to a centralised database containing identification, and other, information about almost every adult Australian and Australian residents. The proposal is flawed because it produces a “honeypot effect” – a highly attractive and richly rewarding single target for criminals engaged in identity theft. See EFA’s submission to the DHS Access Card Consumer and Privacy Taskforce…
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Do Not Call Register Law Passed
The Do Not Call Register Act 2006 has now been enacted by Parliament. The Register is expected to commence in the first half of 2007. On 28 Nov 2005, EFA made a submission in response to the Discussion Paper titled Introduction of an Australian Do Not Call Register issued by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. EFA supports the establishment of a Do Not Call Register. Additional…
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Labor’s mandatory ISP blocking scheme
EFA has issued an analysis of Labor’s recently announced scheme. We conclude that mandatory ISP filtering would not be effective in protecting children. PC based filtering remains more effective. Our analysis includes information about why that is so. Kim Beazley appears to have latched onto an ineffective and unworkable proposal issued by The Australia Institute 3 years ago and further promoted by the Family First Party 18 months ago. According…
Help fight for our digital rights
What We Do
Policy
We actively monitor a number of policy areas and specific issues. The topics below provide a detailed view of EFA’s policy positions.
Copyright
Australia’s copyright laws are outdated, inflexible and not fit for the digital age. As such, EFA is a long-standing supporter of reform of Australia’s Copyright Act.
Privacy & Security
Privacy is fundamentally about consent and control over access to information, and goes hand-in-hand with security. Privacy is a human right.
Censorship
Adults should be able to make their own informed decisions about what content they create and consume.
Encryption
Access to encryption technologies is vital for individuals and groups to be able to safeguard the security and privacy of their information.
Internet Safety
Surveillance is not safety. Safety for whom, against what? This complex problem is more likely to be exacerbated, rather than solved, by measures that allow for unaccountable surveillance and the undermining of communications security.
Surveillance
EFA is committed to ensuring that Australian’s home life is not subject to arbitrary interference.