Tracing those who have been exposed to Covid-19 is an important step in winding down socially and economically crippling lockdowns. Manual tracing is resource-intensive and ineffective. A number of countries, including Singapore and Australia, have adopted smartphone apps using Bluetooth. New Zealand seems likely to follow a similar path. These apps vary in detail but Read more
NZ Privacy Commissioner John Edwards has delivered Facebook another serve as his relations with the social network remain heated. On Monday, Edwards shared an email with the Ne Zealand Herald that he sent to a number of Facebook executives on Friday. Read more
Privacy: When something is free, we are the product. Mark Zuckerberg might believe the world is better without privacy. He’s wrong. It will be fantastically satisfying to see the boy genius flayed. All the politicians—ironically, in search of a viral moment—will lash Mark Zuckerberg from across the hearing room. They will corner Facebook’s founding bro, Read more
In his book 1984, George Orwell detailed a dystopian world wherein a person or persona called “Big Brother” saw everything that people did and where the central government pushed its agenda through propaganda, spying, monitoring, and thought controls. That book was published in 1949. It is now 2017, and while we do not exactly have Read more
A Wellington priest has made a submission to the Select Committee considering the the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and Related Legislation Amendment Bill. Monsignor Gerard Burns said his deepest concern about this bill is that it shakes the relationship of trust between the State and the citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand. “Because a healthy society Read more
The Seal of the confessional is generally respected in most western jurisdictions, whether constitutionally or by custom and practice. To date, in the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain it is respected under custom and practice, while in the US it is protected under two constitutional amendments. Legislation to breach the seal of the confessional would Read more