We would like to remind members that our network change embargo period is from 22nd December 2021 through to 10th January 2022 inclusive. During this time, we will not be provisioning any new services or changing any existing services. Rest assured, support staff will be on call to deal with urgent issues or network emergencies should they arise.
If you have any orders or change requests, please submit them by 10th December 2021.
Well, here we are on the cusp of December 2021, meaning it’s almost 2022. What a year! A huge thank you goes to all our members and stakeholders for supporting our work this year. In case you missed our AGM this month, we launched our new website, the technical team have strengthened our intercapital connectivity, completed numerous upgrades, and started rolling out the new out of band network. Our admin team have been amazingly efficient making sure all of our member data is perfect while we get ready to migrate to our new portal, and our advocacy work has hit amazing highs contributing to the debate on regulation. On top of all that, we also successfully ran the AGM under our new constitution as a company limited by guarantee. What an amazing effort by the team! They’re even madly trying to get some end of year events for you to attend, but as we now hit the Omicron letter of the Greek alphabet, our events list will sadly have to remain short. Hopefully some of you will get to a cruise or pub night out with fellow IAA members. Perhaps some of you might even get to our new office in North Sydney that we are visiting again regularly!
Of course, as we move into the silly season, the various pieces of legislation the government hadn’t had passed are creeping out – just this last week we’ve seen yet another attempt to legislate trolls out of existence, and earlier this month we saw ACMA introduce a parallel customer identification system (on top of the new Comms Alliance Code) and the cut down Critical Infrastructure bill was passed, meaning we will all have new mandatory reporting in the new year. Treasury have also decided they want to be our next big regulator, and will be requiring us to meet Consumer Data Right obligations, and to apply it to everything that attaches to a ‘carriage service’ – you guessed it, that means anything that goes on and with a network service, from phones to IoT widgets. It all keeps us on our toes advocating for reasonable, lighter touch regulation that enables good service, not heavy-handed obligations that merely add to dataveillance and make business harder.
We also ran a roundtable at NetThing on the topic of Internet as an Essential Service last month – while many people see this as indisputable, regulating it as such has a whole different meaning and would require a long list of obligations on service providers that might not necessarily get what users need. Have a watch of the session on our website. We had some great contributors to the discussion with perspectives from all over.
Next year also looks like it will be exciting for us as well. Hopefully all the new pieces of kit we’re ordering will arrive in a timely fashion, so we can activate capacity well in advance of it being needed. Once again, we’re all just wishing for the pandemic to go away so that supply chains can get back to some sort of normal.
Finally, I have to say that I have a new boss – Matthew Enger has stepped up as the new Chair of the Association, with Brett O’Hara acting as Deputy Chair. I have no doubt Matt will be excellent, and he has been just brilliant in providing his time as a Director, past Secretary and Deputy Chair. David Hooton, outgoing Chair, will certainly be very much missed, and I am very glad to see him stay on the board. David has contributed so much with his industry and technology know how, and has been a fantastic guide for me and the team. He has been tireless in his time and effort for the Association, and we are immensely grateful. THANK YOU DAVID! Thanks also to Field Solutions for your support.
Hope to see you all soon, and do have a safe holiday season!
Narelle Clark, IAA CEO
This month, nominations to the Board opened Friday 8 October and closed Monday 25 October. There are three seats up for election this time around; two seats are for three-year terms, and the remaining seat is for a one-year term. Under our new constitution, all members get to vote for all three seats.
We are pleased to advise that we have received three nominations which can be viewed on our website. The official notice of AGM has been sent and voting information will be sent to professional members and the voting contacts of corporate members soon. Please keep an eye out for our upcoming emails and social media posts to stay informed.
One of the biggest developments over the past month was our official registration as a company limited by guarantee with ASIC. The change from the Associations Incorporation Act 2015 (WA) to the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), was necessary as it reflects our national growth as an association.
From the initial consultation with members to the Special General Meeting (SGM), this process required much effort from the Board, staff and members. The SGM held Wednesday 28 July 2021 saw the required majority of votes in favour of the transition.
We remain proud of our Western Australia roots and hope to continue the good works of the Association in the form of both advocacy and services.
The Federal government is continuing to ramp up its program of legislation aiming to control the perceived and real threats from the online world. We’ve written about our participation in the defamation workshops, but just recently it has become clear that the government would like to see defamation regulated the same way as it wants to regulate more obviously dangerous material, ie through the eSafety Commissioner and alongside the Online Safety Act.
There are some very real risks we see with this approach: it is not clear where the liability and responsibility for defamatory material will lie, nor even whether this can be efficiently or effectively implemented. It became increasingly clear throughout the workshops that while it was accepted that straight carriage service providers won’t be liable (as “mere conduits”) other services usually included in an internet access service such as DNS, email, and web hosting, where ISPs have no effective part in the publication of material, may well have liability. Rest assured, we are doing our darndest to reinforce the fact that making a domain name available via the DNS is not an act of defamation, but unfortunately there are no guarantees that legislators won’t do something really stupid. They seem to find it difficult to separate certain large social media platforms from “the Internet” and are increasingly keen to enforce takedowns further and further down the technology and infrastructure stack.
An amended Critical Infrastructure Bill through the House of Representatives last week. Introduced as part of the PJCIS’ report on the Critical Infrastructure Bill, this legislation will see the introduction of a new mandatory notification scheme for cyber incidents. It will also provide Home Affairs with the power to issue information gathering, intervention and action direction requests. Part II of the Bill, which will focus on risk management plans and the declaration of Systems of National Significance (SoNS), is expected to face further consultation with industry.
Communications Alliance released a new code C666:2021 Existing Customer Authentication, which provides an improved framework to authenticate the identity of customers making transactions involving their telecommunications service. So new rules there for people to apply when gaining or transferring customers.
This year, our network change embargo period is from 22nd December 2021 through to 10th January 2022 inclusive. This means that we won’t be provisioning any new services or changing any existing services during this period. Support staff will, of course, be on call to deal with urgent issues or network emergencies should they arise.
Please remember all orders and change requests need to be received by 10th December, 2021. Login to the portal now if you need that upgraded or extra port!
We are excited to announce that we have put forward a submission to host a roundtable discussion exploring what classifying the Internet as an essential service would entail and its wider implications for digital inclusion, minimum service level requirements and digital infrastructure investment for the upcoming NetThing Forum.
NetThing is Australia’s Internet Governance Forum, an annual two-day event bringing a diverse multidisciplinary community together for the discussion of policy issues pertaining to the Internet and technology in Australia. An open and inclusive platform, NetThing provides an opportunity to explore relevant topics, hear from a range of perspectives, and mobilise the community to collaborate on solutions.
This event is set to take place on Thursday 4th and Friday 5th November 2021. It will focus on a metanarrative of ‘Building Bridges’ and encompassing NetThing’s desire to span the invisible divide between stakeholder groups and bring them together in a safe and moderated environment. The four themes for this year are health, trust, inclusion and environment.
If this is an event you are interested in, you can register now or see their website for more details.
Want to join a dynamic focus group and give back to your association? We’re looking for a group of five members who would like to join a focus group to provide feedback on our marketing efforts.
As part of the focus group, you will be asked periodically for your feedback on prospective marketing ideas, campaigns, and content to ensure we provide members with the resources, events, and content they want.
If this is something you or someone you know is interested in, please get in touch with us at admin@internet.asn.au
The transition to a company limited by guarantee continues as we patiently wait to hear back from ASIC to register under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) with deregistration from the Associations Incorporation Act 2015 (WA) complete.
With lockdowns and now even the earthquake, paperwork processing at ASIC has been delayed. Members should rest assured that we will call the AGM as soon as we hear from ASIC!
We would like to extend our gratitude to members who participated in the workshops and consultations and voted on the transition. As a member-run association, your input is invaluable.
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