#77 Stop press! Does privacy really inhibit good journalism?

00:00:06 Arj
Welcome to This Week in Digital Trust, elevenM’s regular conversation about all things tech policy, privacy and cyber security. I’m Arj, joining you today from Awabakal country.
00:00:15 Jordan
And I’m Jordan, joining you from Wurundjeri country. And today Arj we’re gonna talk about your old. Job looking forward to it.
00:00:23 Arj
Yes, the life of a journo. This is a real tough one for me, Joe. Yeah. It’s a real contest of my former self for my current self.
00:00:32 Jordan
And we’re gonna talk about the very high standards that are applied in terms of managing and securing personal information.
00:00:39 Jordan
And we’re gonna talk about respect for boundaries and people’s.
00:00:43 Jordan
Private life and all of.
00:00:44 Arj
That right? That’s what journalism’s all about.
00:00:47 Jordan
We have this exception in the Privacy Act because we can trust journalists to manage personal information perfectly right. So that’s the theme of the conversation today.
00:00:59 Jordan
So there is this carve out from privacy laws that is, in my view, absurdly broad. But we’ll get to that. The the point is to.
00:01:09 Jordan
Strike this balance between public interest in journalism. That’s the 4th state public interest in freedom of expression and the public interest in kind of safeguarding individuals privacy rights. So there’s obviously a whole bunch of journalism that is very important and critical to democracy that we live in.
00:01:29 Jordan
And then there’s a whole bunch of not so you know, details and facts about people’s lives that, quite frankly, we have no business knowing. And there’s a desire to strike that balance.
00:01:42 Jordan
The way that the current Privacy Act does that, I’m not sure it strikes much of A balance, honestly, but it basically just exempts practises of media organisations that’s relatively broadly defined. The media organisation is basically anyone who collects, prepares and disseminates.
00:02:03 Jordan
Information that has the character of news or current affairs, or actually just any information. So if you an organisation that kind of collects and disseminates information in any way, then you’re potentially a media organisation.
00:02:18 Jordan
And then anything that?
00:02:20 Jordan
You do as a media organisation in the course of journalism, journalism is not defined in the course of journalism, is exempt from the Privacy Act, provided that you as an organisation have publicly committed to observe standards that deal with privacy. So if you’ve got a code of conduct.
00:02:41 Jordan
Something and that says you can respect privacy.
00:02:43 Jordan
In some way.
00:02:45 Jordan
As long as that’s a public commitment of your organisation and you do journalism, then.
00:02:51 Jordan
No, privacy. Don’t like, don’t worry about the Privacy Act.
00:02:54 Arj
And so if you’re listening, you’re probably. You’re already feeling like that’s incredibly problematic, like both those things that you just listed.
00:03:02 Arj
If you’re doing journalism well, what is journalism like? No, it’s not clear that everyone has the same, you know, perspective on what that is. And there are a lot of things that fall under the bracket of journalism that people don’t feel are legitimately journalism. And then the other one around, you know, the organisation being publicly committed to observe standards. I mean, there’s a.
00:03:21 Arj
There’s a kind of long running.
00:03:23 Arj
Joke about journalism, self policing ethics in all other realms of, you know, being a journalist, let alone around privacy. I mean, there were whole TV shows like Frontline back in the day. One of my favourites was sort of just make light of the fact that things like the press Council and these kind of self policing self commitments to standards are, you know not overly effective.
00:03:43 Arj
Both those things I don’t necessarily think.
00:03:46 Arj
Give people who are worried about privacy a lot to feel confident about.
00:03:50 Jordan
Yeah. And that’s the concern, right? Cause these self policed standards, they don’t. There’s no requirement that they’re even equivalent to the Privacy Act. There’s no requirement that they are meaningful privacy protections or that people have.
00:04:06 Jordan
Any meaningful recourse if their privacy has been interfered with, you know you’ve got.
00:04:12 Jordan
Some you know, self regulation for print media and there’s some regulation around that right that like I think broadcasters have community safeguards that are policed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. I think print media have the.
00:04:30 Jordan
What’s called Australian Press Council that can handle complaints. You know, if you breach the Privacy Act, you’ve got rights to complain to the Commissioner. The Commissioner will make a determination. You can get compensation. There’s no requirement in order to rely on this exemption that you have anything.
00:04:47 Jordan
Equivalent, right? So.
00:04:48 Jordan
Through and the the recourse there through the Australian Press Council, that’s pretty limited. So yeah, question how how effective that self regulation is so.
00:05:00 Arj
So the changes that are being considered so the you know, the Privacy Act review report has lists, you know, has published a discussion paper. So we have a sort of an outline of what is on the table and the changes to the exemption are essentially that in order to benefit from the journalism exemption and media organisation.
00:05:20 Arj
Must be subject to privacy standards, so we just talked a bit about that.
00:05:25 Arj
What would be so contentious about requiring privacy standards of a journalist or a media organisation? I mean, this is the this is the thing that on the face of it, you know, sort of seems obvious. But it’s interesting to kind of dig a little deeper as to why it’s problematic from a journalist perspective or from a media companies perspective.
00:05:46 Jordan
Yeah, I think that’s it, right. The debate around the exemption is really kind of comes down to that question, right, that.
00:05:55 Jordan
On the one.
00:05:56 Jordan
Hand you’ve got the privacy people.
00:05:58 Jordan
Like myself who are looking at this exemption and saying, look, it’s extremely easy to take advantage of and there’s no actual protection for people baked into the law, we’re just relying on the Australian Press Council soul slapping their members. And on the other hand, you’ve got journalists saying that the more we’re restricted.
00:06:18 Jordan
By these laws, the harder it is for us to do our job, the more likely it is we’re going to be subject to.
00:06:28 Jordan
And lawsuits from rich and powerful people for reporting on anything to do with their lives. There’s this freezing effect of this chilling effect of these kinds of restrictions, right?
00:06:39 Arj
Yeah, there is the australias right to know coalition, which is a coalition of media companies in Australia that have been very vocal about their opposition to removing the exemption.
00:06:49 Arj
There’s actually a line in there. One of their submissions, which I think kind of neatly captures what the objection is from the perspective of the media companies and in in relation to, you know why.
00:07:00 Arj
Being attendant to privacy would be problematic for a journalist, and the quote is the nature of journalism. Is that information about third parties will be collected and disclosed without their consent, and often over their objection, good journalism will often intersect with individuals desires to suppress the revelation of information to the public.
00:07:20 Arj
If the handling of personal information in the course of journalism leads to exposure to liability, regulatory sanctions and litigation, there will be a serious chilling effect on reporting.
00:07:30 Arj
That’s the quote, by the way, that line about serious chilling effect. That’s like the almost like the standard kind of tagline for any any opposition to privacy reform. It feels like big tech use the the media companies use it. It’s there’s gonna be a chilling effect on something, you know.
00:07:43 Jordan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re gonna chill innovation. You’re gonna chill public discourse.
00:07:48 Arj
I mean, I have kind of, I guess some personal resonance resonance with that thinking about the sort of stories that you know I used to.
00:07:57 Arj
Write about and you.
00:07:58 Arj
Know if you think about investigative journalism, you know, by its nature, it’s often, you know, you’re kind of collecting personal information that you haven’t necessary.
00:08:08 Arj
Thoroughly, you know, gotten, gotten directly from the source with consent. It’s kind of, you know, a a a leaked document, a dossier you, you know, you’re doing an investigation into a political figure. The whole thing is almost by definition, a sort of violation of the privacy of the people that are involved. And then sometimes.
00:08:28 Arj
There are these kind of open investigations, like medical investigations is a great one. I mean, Charlie Teo’s in the news where in the process of trying to find the story in there, you know that you’ve been tipped off about you’re starting to work your way through, like medical information.
00:08:44 Arj
And there seems to be an objection here about like, what is practicable here, like if a journalist is looking through, say medical records or you know details of procedures in order to investigate a famous neurosurgeon, are there obligations on them around kind of consent of all of those individuals? How do they go about this investigatory work?
00:09:04 Arj
At what point does this like tip into public interest journalism versus, you know, just some sort of frivolous piece or some sensationalist reporting? There’s all this kind of complications and things that you don’t know the answer to when you’re setting out to investigate the story and this.
00:09:21 Arj
Part of this.
00:09:21 Arj
Sort of argument seems to be.
00:09:23 Arj
If you have the same obligations you have on, say you know telco down the road or you know, bank down the road in terms of handling of personal information, the whole enterprise doesn’t get off the ground.
00:09:34 Jordan
I think that’s fair, right, like and that’s the strongest statement of this argument that.
00:09:41 Jordan
There is this slice of really important.
00:09:43 Jordan
Public interest journalism that.
00:09:46 Jordan
In a practical way, is is like fundamentally disrespectful of peoples privacy rights, right? Like it’s it’s fundamentally intention and I.
00:09:55 Jordan
Think that’s fair?
00:09:57 Jordan
I think the the other side of that spectrum is examples like tabloid publishing, photographs of Lara Bengal celebrity naked in the shower reporting outing, Rebel Wilson in a same-sex relationship.
00:10:17 Jordan
Reporting Kay Ritchie outside a Sydney drug and alcohol clinic.
00:10:24 Jordan
All of these things.
00:10:25 Jordan
Like, do do we really like is?
00:10:26 Jordan
That true public interest journalism there was a reporting the name of this Sydney limo driver who was a COVID patient zero.
00:10:37 Jordan
At one point.
00:10:38 Jordan
That’s like, completely ruined the guys life.
00:10:42 Jordan
There needs to be some room for a discussion.
00:10:44 Jordan
About like where do we draw?
00:10:46 Jordan
The line and right now we don’t.
00:10:48 Jordan
Draw. If you call it. If it can be described as journalism.
00:10:52 Jordan
There is no line. Some of the submissions from.
00:10:57 Jordan
Civil society or?
00:10:58 Jordan
Rights kinds of organisations are trying to insert a requirement that there be a public interest in the story, so you know, and there’s a public interest defence for defamation.
00:11:11 Jordan
I think like this is a thing that courts do. They consider whether or not journalism is in the public interest.
00:11:17 Jordan
And so I think it was in the OIC submission that the exemption should be confined to journalism that is, on balance in the public interest.
00:11:27 Arj
Yeah, I think it’s a complicated question. You know, and I think there there have been kind of various law law reviews that have concluded that it’s a tough thing to to define. I mean, your example is great. Like you know, there’s the sort of the lurid photos of the celebrity in the shower type things which just you can just knock them over as being not just blatant invasions of privacy.
00:11:48 Arj
And not in the public interest.
00:11:50 Jordan
Can I add to that? There’s this whole genre in in Melbourne? I don’t know if it’s it’s Australia wide of races reporting of just like photos of just like messy drunk people on the side of the road having a bad day and it’s just like like do we need to publish that in an identifying?
00:11:59 Arj
Ohh yeah yeah yeah yeah.
00:12:04
Right.
00:12:10 Jordan
A of a person who’s like, you know you, you cannot condone the behaviour, right? But like.
00:12:16 Jordan
They’ve gone, they’ve.
00:12:17 Jordan
Gotten wasted? They’re having a really bad day. And yeah, we’re gonna take that photo. We’re gonna make some money by slapping it on the front of the newspaper.
00:12:24 Arj
Where I find this really a tough thing to kind of wrap your head around is in the sort of garden variety, day-to-day journalism. So I think, you know, both those extremes of, you know, sort of the lurid kind of photos in the shower type of a celebrity. Clearly that’s a 11 end. That’s just not.
00:12:44 Arj
You know not.
00:12:45 Arj
Public interest at all, but then on the other end.
00:12:47 Arj
You know, an investigative report into a politician misusing funds or, you know, or something like some fraud.
00:12:54 Arj
Public interest. But then there’s.
00:12:56 Arj
This sort of.
00:12:57 Arj
Large middle ground of, you know, day-to-day reporting and I think about some of the examples where I remember feeling like I was absolutely involved in something that.
00:13:07 Arj
Felt like it was invasive.
00:13:10 Arj
For a period of time, I was a crime.
00:13:12 Arj
Reporter. I did what? What was a terrible thing, but.
00:13:15 Arj
What we used.
00:13:15 Arj
To call Death Knocks, which is like some.
00:13:17 Arj
Ones family member has died or been in an accident or a victim of crime and you go and you rock up and you knock on the front door and you’re right. From that moment, you’re in the hunt for personal information. They they might not tell you something. Then you go back and you’re looking up stuff about them online. You’re there with the photographer often who’s standing on public property.
00:13:38 Arj
Trying to take a photo into the backyard cause that’s OK according to the law.
00:13:42 Arj
And there’s no tort for serious invasion of privacy. So knock yourself out. And you know you’re using all the kind of tools and platforms to try to find, you know, information about people that have suffered these, you know, been in an accident, been in the crime. This is kind of you will see ten of these stories on the front page of the newspapers right now. This is just day-to-day journalism.
00:14:02 Arj
And I feel like that stuff is very much kind of.
00:14:06 Arj
Stepping into that terrain of like, these are things that are, you know, invasions of privacy. But the story we would often tell ourselves and which I think has some truth to it, is also the part of journalism which is about humanising all of these stories, because they’re things that matter. And if you just leave it to like, ohh, you know the police.
00:14:26 Arj
Media release about an accident or a report you know, 33 year old, you know woman was murdered, blah blah, blah. And there’s no information about.
00:14:35 Arj
People, it’s same within our car accident. The same with any sort of garden variety story. It just becomes kind of background noise and we don’t kind of humanise.
00:14:44 Arj
We don’t care.
00:14:45 Arj
We don’t, you know, seek to kind of find out why something happened. There’s a part of that’s obviously about a self rationalising narrative that people, journalists wanna tell themselves so that they can go.
00:14:56 Arj
Get up and do the next death knock and the next day. But but there’s some truth to it as well. And and it’s where this becomes the, I think, a complicated discussion about where the value of privacy presses up against the value of kind of the freedom of the press.
00:15:11 Arj
To to do its job.
00:15:13 Jordan
The position that I take is that the current law doesn’t require any kind of self reflection. They’re right like.
00:15:21 Jordan
That if you’re.
00:15:22 Jordan
A journalist going nuts, there’s voluntary industry standards that say we’re gonna do some balancing and consider the public interest and.
00:15:33 Jordan
You know, not unduly interfere with people’s privacy, but in a legal sense, in terms of those peoples rights to remedies.
00:15:43 Jordan
It can be the most egregious interference, and there is no remedy. Right. And so, you know, you mentioned a statutory talk of privacy. That’s the other kind of pathway to limiting this fair game, free exemption for journalists, right? Like the Privacy Act review is proposing.
00:16:02 Jordan
On the one hand that that we limit the exemption to say that voluntary industry standards have to actually be adequate, they’ve got to be meaningful. There’s gotta be a.
00:16:13 Jordan
Like independent overseer or complaints body that will enforce breaches of it and that the standards, those voluntary standards that journalists hold themselves to have to be kind of adequate, at least equivalent or roughly to to the Privacy Act, or somehow protecting people’s privacy. So.
00:16:33 Jordan
You know that’s restriction one on the that’s.
00:16:36 Jordan
Being proposed, the other restriction is to say, well, actually independently if that we should have a right to sue people for egregious violations of privacy. So that’s what you know, that’s what you referring to in terms of a statutory tort of privacy for serious invasions of privacy. I should be able to go and sue someone in the same way that I can go and sue.
00:16:57 Jordan
Someone for negligence or? Yeah, both of those things are things that the kind of news media industry is extremely opposed to. The interesting to me, opposition to both of those things is that.
00:17:10 Jordan
The way that.
00:17:11 Jordan
These laws can be weaponised in order to shape the narratives, shape the debate, shape the stories that do get covered so you know, defamation law is already used to punish and to, you know, disincentivize journalists from writing hard stories about.
00:17:31 Jordan
Public figures or wealthy figures and yeah, unless newspapers can easily navigate it or very, you know, effectively justify their activities, then a privacy right is giving another arrow into the quiver of the wealthy person who doesn’t like the story.
00:17:49 Arj
I mean the other take on that though is you know from personal experience, I remember defamation law was always in the background when you were writing a story it.
00:18:00 Arj
Was something you?
00:18:00 Arj
Worried about and stories? Went to you.
00:18:03 Arj
Know went to the.
00:18:04 Arj
Lawyers for legal review.
00:18:05 Arj
Usually primarily to test it against, you know, are we gonna defame someone here? Is there a financial impost? And I, I would say culturally there, there’s not really that attitude to privacy. I mean, yes, people are personally kind of morally motivated, and however they are and don’t want to be, you know, like, I was saying, when I, I didn’t particularly like.
00:18:26 Arj
Going and, you know, intruding on people in that way. And so there was some sense of personal morality. But the overarching incentive for a journalist in a newsroom is to get the story, you know, your your news hounds. You wanna get the on, and you do what you do to get the story that you know, and to be first and to be the one to get the get and get that more.
00:18:46 Arj
Full of information that makes your story better. That’s the incentives. So.
00:18:50 Arj
They’re just saying, let’s let themselves regulate and they’ll, you know, attend to privacy. It doesn’t seem to be enough. And if I compare it to defamation, at least journalists did have that in the back of their mind, you know, because that law was there. So maybe having a something that’s a little bit more enforceable around standards.
00:19:10 Arj
As well.
00:19:11 Arj
Well, you know, we’ll shape that culture.
00:19:14 Jordan
One of the things I worry about with the like right is that you you’re providing this tool for the wealthy, your average person who’s, you know, had a photo taken of them while they’re wasted at Melbourne Cup or something. Or you, the limo driver, COVID patient zero. They they don’t have the money to sue.
00:19:33 Jordan
For an invasion of privacy, right? But that you’re you’re telling a story there that, like, suggests A pathway to you have a few rich people who will sue.
00:19:44 Jordan
At the high end and that fear of that lawsuit shapes the culture and is hanging over you is a chilling effect some extent, but is hanging over you as a reporter of as something. OK, I’ve gotta worry about. Am I at risk of privacy? Am I at risk of defamation? And now the two questions that they ask themselves and.
00:20:04 Jordan
Would be a.
00:20:04 Jordan
Really valuable kind of pressure towards more respectful coverage maybe, yeah.
00:20:10 Arj
Yeah. And I and I think.
00:20:12 Arj
If media companies.
00:20:13 Arj
Will not argue that there should be no overturning of the exemption. I think, ideally at the very least they can do more to sort of.
00:20:21 Arj
Establish those standards and be clear about them, and we talk a lot about kind of organisational accountability in other contexts, but.
00:20:28 Arj
At the very least, if there’s not going to be the same requirements on media companies in the same way.
00:20:34 Arj
There are other businesses.
00:20:35 Arj
Well, it would be.
00:20:37 Arj
It would be nice to have something a bit more forceful around saying, OK, you’ve got to have standards, they’ve got to be sort of somehow they’re testable to say that they’re up to a point of rigour. And then you’re also clearly.
00:20:50 Arj
Training and accrediting journalists in those standards, like at the moment, I don’t think there’s anything to say. You know, anyone who writes any of the stories we’ve read has gone through a process.
00:21:00 Arj
This is accredited to follow those privacy standards. We just have to assume.
00:21:05 Arj
And and I.
00:21:06 Arj
Would be, you know, not surprised to to think that that that’s not happening. So you know to have a sort of a show of accreditation, a show of kind of training and enforcement where kind of people are falling out of line. I think if you know if you want to take.
00:21:20 Arj
And you know regulatory parts and and argue that the exemption remained or then.
00:21:25 Arj
At least this could be.
00:21:26 Arj
The sort of the quid pro.
00:21:27 Jordan
Quo. The other thing that the Privacy Act review proposal picks up on is that.
00:21:41 Jordan
There’s a.
00:21:43 Jordan
Requirement in the Privacy Act.
00:21:45 Jordan
To keep information secure so you know all organisations subject to the Privacy Act have to take reasonable steps to secure the personal information that they hold as an organisation, the exemption for journalistic organisations also applies to that, so there’s no obligation for a media organisation for a journalist to secure.
00:22:06 Jordan
The their files secure the information they hold if they have a data breach, they don’t have to tell you about it and you have no privacy rights under the Privacy Act to, you know, get get compensation for harms that you’ve suffered, whereas you know, as we’ve seen with previous high profile data breaches.
00:22:25 Jordan
For every other.
00:22:26 Jordan
Large organisation in Australia there is both of those obligations. They gotta tell you and you’ve got some rights to complain if if you’re harmed.
00:22:34 Jordan
The Privacy Act review proposes.
00:22:36 Jordan
That even if we don’t, you know, maybe we.
00:22:38 Jordan
Don’t get rid of the exemption entirely, but maybe there’s room for just requiring that journalists secure the information they hold right, which I think.
00:22:50 Jordan
Is a very.
00:22:50 Jordan
Reasonable kind of position it it’s it seems pretty hard to argue that.
00:22:56 Jordan
In order to do journalism, we must have insecure.
00:23:00 Jordan
IT systems or insecure information handling processes.
00:23:05
Well, I think.
00:23:05 Arj
At the level of, you know, individual journalists, I I think there’s probably more than enough for reason to say, you know, information handling could be a lot better and a lot.
00:23:14 Arj
More secure I think.
00:23:17 Arj
Like again it’s a.
00:23:18 Arj
Cultural shift, though, because you know.
00:23:21 Arj
I remember being encouraged just to keep everything for as long as I could, which is not particularly good. Secure behaviour. Only very recently destroyed, you know, notepads I had of you know, lots and lots of information about people I’d interviewed and spoken to and researched over the years because, you know, the idea was that these things could all be stories one day. So.
00:23:42 Arj
And and they weren’t particularly well secured in my house. I wouldn’t, yeah. And but also, as a journalist, just experiencing how open the networks were as well within a within a newsroom, I think, you know, the, the the networks are left open because journalists need to access anything and everything and information needs to flow. That was.
00:24:02 Arj
Many years ago, like since that time, I mean nine have had a major cyber attack a couple of years ago, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve locked things down a.
00:24:10 Arj
Lot more, but I I just.
00:24:12 Arj
Remember again the pervasive culture of like you know.
00:24:16 Arj
Because security always tends to come in competition with kind of the ability for information to easily flow from one place to another, the emphasis was definitely on the ladder. You know, let let things be open. Let people access any website they want. You don’t know what story they’re gonna be covering. You know, we can’t put any obstacles in the way this.
00:24:34 Arj
Is the news room.
00:24:35 Arj
This runs on deadline all the time. They’re not gonna go and get an approval from IT to unlock a website, to research the story that they need to write for tomorrow.
00:24:43 Arj
Paper. That was the kind of prevailing mindset. So it’d be interesting to see how they’ve navigated that given the threat landscape has changed quite a bit.
00:24:52 Jordan
Yeah, I’d love to see what The Newsroom security is like around 9 now having you know, when you’ve had a ransomware attack that’s like actually affected your broadcast, your ability to stay on the air.
00:25:06 Jordan
Then yeah, I imagine there’s a lot more attention.
00:25:08 Jordan
Paid to security I.
00:25:09 Jordan
Like like anything, I think there’s a spectrum there, right? That like sure locking everything down so that journalists can’t make connections like that, accessing information and making connections is part of that job. And so.
00:25:25 Jordan
You know, I don’t think anyone saying that there should be a standard of security applied that would restrict that at the other end of the spectrum. I don’t know, maybe have.
00:25:37 Jordan
Secure passwords. Maybe use two factor authentication for access to your system.
00:25:43 Jordan
Maybe have locks on the doors right now there’s no legal obligation to do any of that, right? All of this like super basic type security. Yeah, right. Now they’re not a media organisation. Would not be breaking the law if they published, like, just on the Internet, accidentally.
00:26:02 Jordan
Their whole investigations of peoples, medical records or whatever, whether or not it’s newsworthy, I think there’s a line we can draw somewhere which I think the Privacy Act review again, is trying to draw the.
00:26:14 Jordan
Like maybe we’re at the stage where there is a baseline of security expectation that can apply to anyone, no matter how important their job is, or no matter how difficult it is or whatever.
00:26:28 Arj
Yeah, I think that’s reasonable. And then?
00:26:30 Arj
I think that’s again the sort of thing.
00:26:31 Arj
I think that.
00:26:32 Arj
You know, media companies could build confidence in putting on websites and saying that these are the standards we’re holding to, you know, being a little bit more transparent and maybe assertive about what they are doing in that space.
00:26:46 Arj
But you know, then again, it’s not the same as a, you know, like we often talk about kind of commercial organisations if they can kind of talk up their security, we’ll build trust and sell more product. It’s probably not the same.
00:26:58 Arj
From media company, as I said, they still.
00:27:00 Arj
At the end.
00:27:00 Arj
Of the day.
00:27:00 Arj
Need to, you know, land a land, a great front page story. So, but yeah, I I don’t think the expectations on reason why I think what you’re saying particularly like you know I think about things like collaborative journalism where you know.
00:27:12 Arj
People are sharing.
00:27:13 Arj
Like Panama papers type stuff where there’s consortiums and journalisms working on.
00:27:18 Arj
Journalists working on things.
00:27:20 Arj
Secure, you know, file sharing.
00:27:22 Arj
Would be really important in that context, you.
00:27:24 Arj
Know your sense.
00:27:24 Jordan
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Or like.
00:27:26 Jordan
Tip offs and whistleblowers and all sorts of things right, like secure security is critical in a lot of kind of that that high end investigative stuff. Security is critical. So I think it’s a bit kind of unfair to say ohh you know it’s impossible for us to think about.
00:27:46 Jordan
Security. There’s there’s a kind.
00:27:48 Jordan
Of display of helplessness there that could be. It is maybe unfair. I mean, journalists and media organisations are more sophisticated than that.
00:27:56 Arj
Yeah. What we.
00:27:57 Arj
Need is one of the papers to write about, the other ones bad security and.
00:28:01 Jordan
Nice, nice. Just start the start that sniping war and then yeah, no, it’s a no. It’s an interesting area, I think particularly interesting because there isn’t a clean line here in any of it. It’s all trade offs.
00:28:01 Arj
That will that will get done.
00:28:17 Jordan
Critical often of those organisations that are, you know, trying to push away any kind of suggestion that they need to be regulated. But I think there are some really genuine concerns here and it’s there is not a clean answer, right? Like I think it’s, yeah, we, we gotta be pretty careful about how we.
00:28:37 Jordan
Apply privacy and security requirements into these organisations. It’s not an argument to continue to be exempt entirely, but you know some real consideration has to be made.
00:28:48 Arj
Alright, well I think I think you’ve helped me exercise my demons and work my way through my, you know, internal conflicts. Thank you very much. Yeah. Feeling a lot better.
00:28:59 Jordan
Feeling better? Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that.
00:29:00 Arj
Thank you, for that. Chat to you next week.