FIT5205 Data in Society: Governance & Accountability Case Study

This case study delves into the critical aspects of data governance and accountability within the Australian context, particularly focusing on the Australian Statistical Agency (ASA) and its handling of census data. It examines the external and internal governance mechanisms of ASA, its legal responsibilities under the Census and Statistics Act 1905 and the Privacy Act 1988, and its role in corporate governance to ensure transparency and accountability. The study highlights issues related to data sharing, the use of customer data rights, and the challenges of balancing data accessibility with privacy concerns. It also addresses the need for public trust in government data practices and the importance of robust data governance frameworks to support informed decision-making and protect citizens' information. The document discusses the Australian government's initiatives to improve data governance, including the Data Sharing and Release Act, and the Data Integration Partnership for Australia (DIPA), emphasizing the need for a balanced approach that promotes data use while safeguarding privacy.

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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................1
Governance of Australian Statistical Agency..............................................................................................1
Accountability of....................................................................................................................................2
Other Data related Governance and accountability issues......................................................................2
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................4
Reference:...................................................................................................................................................4

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INTRODUCTION
Governance relates to ethical values, principal and practices that enable the stability among
financial and communal objectives and among individual and public objectives. The main
objective of the governance is to organize the welfares of beings, industries and the public as
governance structure emphasizing the public attention. The administration who manages the
information for the data collection not governed the data. There are two separate administrations
one who govern the data and one who manage the data (Ladley, 2012).
Governance of Australian Statistical Agency
Australian Statistical Agency (ASA) is an agency of the Australian Government and this agency
was accountable to the Government, and finally to the community. The ASA governance
structure has two extensive mechanisms External governance and internal governance.
Australian Statistical Agency was under the obligation to launch and preserve a suitable scheme
of menace oversight and administration for the government. ASA is a legislative specialist of
Australia and conducts a survey for the government and community. It was the first census of
ASA where the survey was conducted in a digital form. The Australian Statistical Agency has a
legal responsibility to preserve data protected and certify that the information assembled for the
census will not be disclosed by it.
As per the Census and Statistics Act 1905, the information provided by the public for the Survey
report remains stringently personal to the government or administrative body. The personal
information of the individuals is handled with the rules and regulation of Privacy Act 1988.
ASA played a role of corporate governance which was responsible for the rules, strategies and
for the monitoring the internal control for a census report. Corporate governance of ASA was for
the assortment of mechanisms, developments and data collection for the census report. ASA
corporate governance engagements certify transparency in assessment creating, procedure and
accountability by endorsing comprehensive administration, operative formation and analysis
progressions.

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Accountability of Australian Statistical Agency
It was the responsibility of ASA to create and preserve appropriate arrangement of risk oversight
and management for the census report. If ASA releases the personal information of the public to
any individual or other organization, in that case, ASA staffs were held to be liable for the
punishment including penalties of up to $21,600 or sentence for up to 2 years, or both, for any
person sentenced of breaking this obligation.
ASA introduced an inventive cardinal technique assembled census sustaining but due to
secretarial and employment resources within in-house employees of ASA, the strategy was
delegated to UVN. ASA was the governmental organization it was the responsibility of this
organization to create precise and reliable statistics free from any influence or fraud. ASA was
accountable for threatening the credibility of census statistics. Giving the power of acquiring the
name and address of all citizens to UNA was the delicate matter for the public and because of
this decision of ASA, both UNA and ASA were held accountable.
On 26 November 2017 the Government marked its objective to application a Customer Data
Right, unique Efficiency Commission’s recommendations in its Data Obtainability and Use
Investigation explosion.
Other Data related Governance and accountability issues
The supreme reliable association is the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Australia. The
Australian Administration identifies that the statistics grasps by the government is a planned
domestic reserve that embraces significant assessment for developing the economy, humanizing
provision distribution and renovating strategy consequences for all Australians. Superior usage
and division of public data accelerate improved monetary action and increases efficiency.
Without cultivating data approachability within government, the prospect for improved
efficiency, struggle and provision distribution and investigation consequences will be
unexploited.
An operative data governance platform supports commercial and public to create verdicts
grounded on translucent and honourable data (Morrison, 2017).

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The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has newly released direction on Data
Analytics and the Australian Privacy Principles, and De-identification and the Privacy Act. The
announcement of the Controllers, and OAIC's latest resolution to probe Facebook subsequently
the delicate data of 87 million users (including more than 311,000 Australians) was
inappropriately recycled and revealed to statistics analytics corporation Cambridge Analytical
works as a appropriate and valuable notice to administrations about the consequences under the
Privacy Act when directing data analytics. Data holders are obligatory be responsible for an
online provision that can be recycled to create Creation Statistics or Customer Statistics
requirements and reveal the statistics demanded. The Government dedicated to rearranging data
governance contained by the administration to healthier understands the welfares of enlarged
data use, though preserving confidence and sureness in the organization. The National Map is
premeditated to create healthier use of community data. The National Map is a vulnerable
source. The ACCC has explained ADIs will not be obligatory to part any consequent statistics as
portion of the Exposed Lending government.
The Australian inhabitants are normally understanding of administration consuming or
distribution data. Though it does not mean that they trust the Australian Administration is
presently going on the right direction with the data (Biddle, et al., 2018). The Australian
administration has approved fresh law that would permit rule implementation establishments to
dynamism tech corporations to hand over operator info.
The Assistance and Access Bill 2018 has been analyzed by Apple as well as additional
knowledge businesses and researchers which contends that the legislature will deteriorate the
statistics safety of all Australians with a spread that might endanger the statistics of corporations,
inhabitants, and civilizations.
Section 12 of the Public Records Act 1973 requires the Guardian of Community Registers to
create principles for the well-organized administration of community registers and to support
community bureaus in the submission of those principles to registers under their regulator.
Governance imperfections ran hot in 2017. The dual-citizenship watershed absent Australians
confused.
In 2017, The Turnbull governments direct refusal of the Uluru affirmation on Native gratitude
further to intelligence of prevention within and outside Indigenous societies. Numerous

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governance and accountability concerns continue. The matrimonial vote is about to offspring an
investigation into spiritual liberty.
Governments are not the individual body that grasps data about the public. Certainly, a
progressively enormous quantity of statistics is held by profitable bodies. Educational
organizations also grasp statistics about entities selected data are delivered by the administration
and other organization but the enormous quantity of data is composed by the educational institute
itself (Crispin Hull, 2018).
Government dedicated to restructuring data governance to well recognize the financial and
communal welfares of enlarged statistics practice, although preserving community belief and
sureness in the organization. Supporting this restructuring is a different Data Sharing and
Release Act. The Data Sharing and Release Bill will sensibly contemplate present confidentiality
requirements to stability the essential to defend confident categories of administration data, with
data sharing and release for community concern devotions (Department of the Prime Minister
and Cabinet, 2018).
The Data Integration Partnership for Australia (DIPA) is a speculation to exploit the practice and
position of the Administration’s statistics resources. There are supplementary 500 current
statistics confidentiality and privacy requirements diagonally extra 175 diverse sections of
Australian Administration regulation. The enormous mainstream of these requirements preclude
distribution of statistics, excluding in exact incomplete statuses.
Conclusion
Irrespective of the explanations and the circulation, if the administration, investigators and
private corporations need to be capable to make use of the fertility of the innovative Statistics
phase. There is a crucial and enduring requirement to construct up confidence through the
inhabitants and to situate strategies habitation that encourages patrons and employers of
administration amenities (Falk, 2018).

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Reference:
Australian Government - Federal Register of Legislation. (n.d.). Privacy Act of 1988.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2004A03712
Biddle, N., Edwards, B., Gray M and McEachern, S. (2018) Public attitudes towards data
governance in Australia, Australian National University, 2018
Crispin Hull, ‘Australia’s ongoing governance failures, and how to fix them’, The Sydney
Morning Herald (AUSTRALIA) January 19, 2018, https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/australias-
ongoing-governance-failures-and-how-to-fix-them-20180119-h0kx18.html.
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, New Australian Government Data Sharing and
Release Legislation: Issues paper for consultation, 04 July 2018
https://www.pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/public-data/issues-paper-data-sharing-release-
legislation
Falk, A. (2018) New Australian Government Data Sharing and Release Legislation submission
to Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Office of the Australian Information
Commissioner. 2018, August 23.
Ladley, J. (2012) Data Governance: How to Design, Deploy and Sustain an Effective Data
Governance Program, Newnes 2018.
Loong, S. and Gigliotti, M. (2018) Government invite comments on new data sharing and release
laws, Minter Ellison.
Morrison, S. Productivity Commission 2017, Data Availability and Use, Report No. 82,
Canberra
Public Records Act 1973, Section 12, No. 8418 of 1973(2010)

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