We were researching a story on the use – or misuse – of large databases which collects information on citizens without their knowledge and discovered that a classic exposé by legendary ABC journalist Mark Colvin had been removed from the ABC website. We retrieved those webpages from the Wayback Machine and republish them here.
In 2002 Kerry Packer sold his 50% stake in Acxiom back to the US parent company but they still operate in Australia. The list of companies who partner with Acxiom Include: Facebook, eBay, Prosper Insights & Analytics, RUN Advertising, Social Reality … etc
Following the Facebook & Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook said it will no longer offer an advertising option that exploits personal data provided by third-party aggregators, including Acxiom (US, UK, France, Germany & Australia), Epsilon (US), Oracle Data Cloud (US & UK), Experian, TransUnion and others.
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Mark Colvin presents PM Monday to Friday from 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio. Join Mark for the latest current affairs, wrapping the major stories of each day.
Program Archive: Tuesday 30 November 1999
PM covers a broad spectrum of issues relevant to all sections of Australia’s geographically and culturally diverse community. It looks behind political, economic, industrial, business, social, cultural, rural, regional and arts stories. Below is the program summary with links to transcripts and audio (if available).
Packer, ACXIOM and 1984
A decade and a half ago, Australian civil libertarians used the spectre of George Orwell’s novel, 1984 to defeat the Australia Card. Now they’re raising Orwell’s masterpiece again, but the potential Big Brother they’re attacking this time is a man of private, not public power, Kerry Packer. ACXIOM Australia, the massive database venture Packer’s going into with an American company has exposed weaknesses in Australian privacy law. Citizens have protection against government prying, but the rules give open slather to the private sector.
Packer, ACXIOM and 1984
PM Archive – Tuesday, 30 November , 1999 Reporter: Denise Knight
COMPERE: First to the latest incarnation of 1984, a book that George Orwell published 50 years ago in 1949 and in which he conjured up a world in which the individual’s life in all its detail was the property of the government, known as The Party.
EXCERPT FROM BOOK ‘1984’: He knew now that for seven years the thought police had watched him like a beetle under a magnifying glass. There was no physical act, no word spoken aloud that they had not noticed, no train of thought that they had not been able to infer. He could not fight against The Party any longer. Besides, The Party was in the right. It must be so. How could the immortal collective brain be mistaken. It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought.
COMPERE: A decade and a half ago Australian civil libertarians used the Orwellian spectre of 1984 to defeat the Australia Card. Now they’re raising Orwell’s masterpiece again, but the potential Big Brother they’re attacking this time is a man of private, not public power, Kerry Packer.
The massive data base venture that Packer is going into with an American company has exposed weaknesses in Australian privacy law. Citizens have protection against government prying, but the rules give open slather to the private sector. The Federal Government says it’s in the process of drafting new laws to cover business, but opponents say the commercial invasion of privacy is out of control.
Denise Knight reports:
DENISE KNIGHT: Welcome to the information age, brought to you by Kerry Packer, Australia’s richest man and US company, Axiom, the largest information service provider in the world. Together they’re hoping to develop the most powerful data base on Australians ever compiled. The venture is being headed up by Andrew Robb, the former Federal Director of the Liberal Party.
Linked to the electoral rolls, the Packer data warehouse will contain details of where you live, credit and retail spending patterns, car and mortgage records, cultural interests and the list goes on.
The Privacy Commissioner of New South Wales and former Liberal Party Senator, Chris Puplick, says the venture highlights just how out of hand commercial invasion of privacy has become.
CHRIS PUPLICK: It flows from the fact that Commonwealth Government, in particular, has dragged the chain for more than a decade on having decent privacy legislation. It still doesn’t have decent privacy legislation. The States are still not prepared to have decent privacy legislation in relation to coverage of the private sector, and so needless to say, things like this spring up like weeds because nobody has been tending the garden.
DENISE KNIGHT: Chris Puplick says consumers should be very worried about their personal details being stored on a giant data base, warning current laws offer no protection.
CHRIS PUPLICK: Unlike say government records around the place, they will have no rights to know what is held in terms of data about them, they’ll have no right to check its accuracy, they’ll have no right to make corrections, and so when all of their details are sold to various people, they will be unable to stop that because it’s all an offshore operation. They’ll have no right not to have their information when they now book through Ticketek recorded and sent off to various people around the world. They’ll have no right if, in fact, what happens is they get an adverse credit rating or they get on a black-list either deliberately or because a mistake is made. They will just have to suffer the consequences of this.
DENISE KNIGHT: The New South Wales Privacy Commissioner says with the data operation of this size the dangers to consumers are limitless.
CHRIS PUPLICK: Somebody’s bought a high-priced stereo set, I can find that out. Somebody goes away regularly, I can find that out. I know whether their house is secure or not secure, because I can look in the building approvals from the local council as to whether they’ve had security devices installed. You know, I can go on.
DENISE KNIGHT: Those opposed to data warehousing are already comparing the Packer venture to George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Chris Puplick sees the parallels.
CHRIS PUPLICK: Mr Robb’s background in this area is as a senior political strategist used to being able to target people for political purposes to try and persuade them to change their mind. Now, Andrew’s a very skilful man. He knows exactly how to manipulate data in order to have the maximum impact on the thinking and the behaviour of individuals.
COMPERE: The New South Wales Privacy Commissioner, Chris Puplick, talking to Denise Knight.
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ACXIOM Australia’s chief executive responds to privacy concerns
ACXIOM Australia’s chief executive and former Liberal Party director Andrew Robb responds to Chris Puplick’s concerns and claims that the commercial invasion of privacy is out of control.
This is a transcript from PM. The program is broadcast around Australia at 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio.
PM Archive – Tuesday, 30 November , 1999 Reporter: Mark Colvin
COMPERE: Axiom Australia’s chief executive and the former Liberal Party director, Andrew Robb, … joins us now to respond to these claims.
What is your general response to what you’ve just heard Chris Puplick saying?
ANDREW ROBB: Well, we are very concerned that as the technology enables this collection of data, as it does these days, by companies all over the world, that the privacy of people is respected. And, in fact, it makes commercial good sense for organisations such as mine to be at the forefront of privacy issues. And, you know, we are seeking to give people control over the data that’s made available, and I know the point’s made by Chris Puplick, but the fact of the matter is we support privacy legislation.
MARK COLVIN: Well, can you tell me, how are you offering to give people control over this data if the law isn’t there to protect them?
ANDREW ROBB: Well, you don’t necessarily have to have – well, one, the law is coming and we support it, right, so that’s on the one hand we think these sorts of controls ought to be in place so that people have the assurance that they have given permission for the use of data about themselves, and if they wish to remove or withdraw that permission, they can do so.
And, you know, as a company we have worked in Europe for several years now under the European directive on privacy, which is the most stringent laws in the world, and we took a commercial decision …
MARK COLVIN: But you can see that …
ANDREW ROBB: … to set up systems which are consistent with the European directive.
MARK COLVIN: But one of the concerns that Mr Puplick raised was that a lot of this material is just going to go offshore. In this digitised, globalised world, how can you screen it off?
ANDREW ROBB: Well, the thing is it’s how you collect it in the first place. You see, most companies have a welter of information about individuals. In fact, most of our business is not this data base that’s been talked about today, most of our business, both here and overseas, is helping companies get a corner store view, a single view of the customers that they’ve got already, and those companies protect that data with a passion.
MARK COLVIN: But even there – I’m sorry to interrupt, but even there aren’t there huge dangers in terms of people’s privacy, that your spending habits are part of your private life, or have been in the past, and can tell a lot about who you are as an individual, can’t they?
ANDREW ROBB: Now, what I’m saying to you is that most of our business is concerned with helping companies get a single view within their own company, not outside their company, within their own company, of their customers. A lot of companies have got lots of products they sell. I mean, people go and they ring up the insurance arm of a bank, but they never have done any business with the insurance arm of their bank, but they might have been a customer for 25 years. They would like the bank – the insurance arm to know that they’ve been a loyal customer for 25 years so that they get treated properly by the bank. Now, you know, it’s giving a corner store view within the bank of their customers.
MARK COLVIN: But that’s exactly what I was really asking you about. I mean, you could say, for instance, suppose a corporation wants to target the so-called pink dollar, the gay community. They can find out through their data records who is part of that community, but you can obviously see the dangers involved in targeting that kind of community.
ANDREW ROBB: Wrong. The thing is, the bank doesn’t release that information. The organisations, they protect their data with a passion because it gives them a competitive edge, knowing about their own customers, gives them a competitive edge. That is most of our business.
MARK COLVIN: But data bases are for sale all over the world.
ANDREW ROBB: I beg your pardon?
MARK COLVIN: Data bases are also for sale all over the world. I mean, there is a trade in data, isn’t there?
ANDREW ROBB: Okay, what I’m doing is drawing a distinction between what most of the data is held within individual companies and protected with a passion by those companies because it gives them an edge.
MARK COLVIN: But your company is …
ANDREW ROBB: Yes, just one second. Separately to that, right – and that’s most of our business, helping companies do that and maintain the security of that data. Separately to that, there are companies which collect information about individuals, and they ask them permission. Now, you go on the Net tonight and you purchase a product or you start a conversation, so to speak, with companies. Often they will ask you, “Would you like your details, your interests in fishing,” or some other activity, “to be made available to other companies?”
MARK COLVIN: But often it’s not that voluntary. I mean, the Australian Electoral Commission is saying itself that it’s concerned about its roll of voters being used for commercial purposes, and none of us have the choice about that, do we?
ANDREW ROBB: Let me finish this. I mean, in the past there has not been often the ability for people to be asked permission, or if it was asked, there has been no ability to respect it. Now the technology which allows a lot of this data collection also enables the protection and the controls to be put in, so that if someone says, “Yes, I want some information,” or “I want my details given to companies which share my interests, but nowhere else,” that can be protected nowadays, that can be controlled, that can be built into the system, so that people’s privacy, people’s ability to control data about themselves is able to be cost-effectively managed by companies. And that’s what’s happening as the technology improves, the legitimate and very legitimate privacy requirements of individuals increases.
MARK COLVIN: So what guarantees do you think there’ll be for people who are alarmed by the nightmarish prospect that Chris Puplick raised that you could get onto a black-list, through no fault of your own perhaps, because of a mistake in your identity, and never be able to get off it.
ANDREW ROBB: Well, for one it’s not right – I mean, we don’t collect credit details, and won’t be. That is quite separately covered under already privacy legislation which has been around for a long, long time, right, and credit referencing is a very important issue in the community to stop fraud and all the rest of it. It is proven, it’s covered now by privacy legislation, it’s the only area of commercial activity which is covered, and it is proven, it does show you that privacy laws can work and have worked in the credit referencing area, are working in that area, and we are strongly supportive of legislation which brings in the sort of code of conduct that now currently is operating by the [inaudible], so there will be protection.
But even without that legislation, companies such as my own have voluntarily put in place procedures which ensure that anyone can find out what information is held about themselves, can ask for that information to be withdrawn from access from any other company …
MARK COLVIN: So you have nothing to fear from legislation being drawn up by Daryl Williams?
ANDREW ROBB: Absolutely nothing. In fact, I’ve just been elected as a Board member of the Direct Marketing Association, who have worked with the Government to put together the legislation, and will continue to work for this legislation to be put into place. We’ve got zero to fear, and I think it makes commercial good sense for companies such as mine to give people control over the use of data concerning themselves, because if people are happy to receive information from companies that they want to hear offers from, then everybody’s happy.
It’s part of this move from a product focus to a consumer customer focus, where you give people the capacity to receive information about things they’re interested in and to exclude offers from areas that they’re not interested in, get rid of the junk mail and the junk E-mails, and all of that sort of thing, allow stronger customer focus which does target the things that they are interested in and the products and the services that they prefer and want to hear about.
MARK COLVIN: Andrew Robb, thank you very much indeed for coming on PM tonight.
Electoral role can be bought: AEC
The Australian Electoral Commission is concerned that its roll of voters can be used for commercial purposes. But it says there’s nothing it can do to stop Axiom including the personal details in its data warehouse. AEC spokesman Brian Hallett says the Act states that the roll can be bought and tighter control over its use is a matter for Parliament.
PM Archive – Tuesday, 30 November , 1999 Reporter: Mark Colvin
COMPERE: Electoral Commission spokesman, Brian Hallett, says the Act states the roll can be bought and tighter control over its use is a matter for Parliament.
BRIAN HALLETT: The Electoral Commission has made submissions to two Parliamentary Committees that the provisions in the Electoral Act that cover the use of the roll perhaps need to be reviewed because the roll is a document for running elections, not for commercial purposes. But really, if an individual or a business or a group purchase the electoral roll, we have no further control over the use to which they put it, and that is a matter of concern to the AEC.
COMPERE: Brian Hallett of the Australian Electoral Commission.
Onus on the private sector: Attorney-General
PM Archive – Tuesday, 30 November , 1999 Reporter: Alexandra Kirk
COMPERE: The privacy concerns are now being directed squarely at the Federal Government. It had promised to introduce legislation into Parliament by the end of the year which would apply privacy laws to the private sector. But the Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, now says the Bill isn’t ready. He told Alexandra Kirk the onus is on the private sector to do the right thing.
DARYL WILLIAMS: What people need to understand is that there are literally thousands of organisations around the country which are collecting information on individuals.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: But not necessarily on this scale.
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, not necessarily on this scale, but the smaller collections may be more potent in their interference with personal privacy. Now, what we want to do is to put in place the legislation that we’ve been developing that will ensure that the same sort of protection of information applies in the private sector as currently applies in the Commonwealth sector.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: So do you think your privacy legislation would have stopped this operation?
DARYL WILLIAMS: No, I don’t think it would stop it, but it would certainly govern the way the information is collected, the way it is used and the way it’s recorded and the way it’s disclosed.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Electoral Commission has said in the past that it didn’t like the electoral roll being used for commercial purposes, even though the Electoral Act does allow that to be the case. So would you consider making changes to that?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, that’s a matter for the Electoral Commissioner and the Special Minister of State, Senator Chris Ellison.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: So is this operation, do you think, a de facto version of the Australia Card, which the Coalition fought so hard to prevent and actually won?
DARYL WILLIAMS: No, it’s a different exercise. I think all it is – it appears to be is a large-scale exercise of what goes on commercially every day. But it’s very rare that you’ll find that information being used irresponsibly or indiscriminately. And I’m sure that a body that is designed to collect information is going to act very responsibly. It’s just good business to protect the privacy of people you want to deal with.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: You undertook to have the private sector privacy legislation in Parliament by Christmas. Now that’s not going to happen, so there’ll be no limits then on what this giant data warehouse can do until you put the legislation through?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, they can collect information like anybody else can at the moment. They will not be subject to private sector privacy legislation obligations because we haven’t yet enacted them, but they will be as soon as the Bill is enacted, like everybody else will.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: And when do you expect that to happen?
DARYL WILLIAMS: We’re going to use the opportunity over the Christmas/New Year break to consult with some key stakeholders on particular provisions, and we expect to be introducing it as soon as Parliament resumes in February.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: Do you expect the legislation would be retrospective or that there might be a need for that to happen?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, parts of it will bind people who have information which they’re obviously going to be updating on a regular basis.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: Until the legislation is in place in the interim, would you consider asking the Packer Axiom joint venture to adhere to the spirit of the legislation?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, I would think any responsible organisation will apply the principles that are set out in the national principles for the fair handling of personal information.
ALEXANDRA KIRK: But in order to allay any public concerns, would you consider speaking to them about this?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, it’s really a matter for the Privacy Commissioner to deal with, and I’m sure he’s already had contact with them. And I would expect that a responsible organisation who wants to make a success of a business in the long-term is going to act responsibly, is going to ensure that people will not be apprehensive about what might happen to information relating to them.
COMPERE: The Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, speaking to Alexandra Kirk in Canberra
Culture jammers
Is the individual powerless against the tide of information power and centralisation? Not according to a group[ called “culture jammers”. “Culture jammers” is a loose term for pranksters, hoaxers, hackers, and satirists, who engage in political activism. Prime targets for the culture jammers – media moguls, and other powerful figures. Examples of their work include setting up fake World Trade Organisation websites critical of free trade; altering billboards and signs; switching the electronic voiceboxes of GI Joe and Barbie dolls; overwhelming computer systems with e-mails; and even painting un-approved cycle lanes. Culture Jammers say this is the new form of social activism.
PM Archive – Tuesday, 30 November , 1999 Reporter: John Taylor
In the meantime is the individual powerless against the tide of information, power and centralisation? Not according to a group called “Culture Jammers”. Culture jammers is a loose term for pranksters, hoaxers, hackers and satirists who engage in political activism. Prime targets – media moguls and other powerful figures.
Examples of their work include setting up fake World Trade Organisation websites, critical of free trade, altering billboards and signs, switching the electronic voice boxes of GIO and Barbie Dolls, overwhelming computer systems with e-mails and even painting unapproved cycle lanes.
Carly Larson is a self-professed culture jammer from Canada and the author of a new book on the phenomenon called “Culture Jam – the Un-cooling of America”. He told John Taylor it’s the new form of social activism.
CARLY LARSON: Well I think that many of these old movements have had their day now. You know, black liberation of the 50’s and 60’s, and feminism a few years later, and then environmentalism. And especially the left, I think, the political left has now really lost a fire in its belly and I think what the world needs is a new social activist movement of our information age that really tackles the big problems that face us right now.
JOHN TAYLOR: How is culture jamming going to do that?
CARLY LARSON: Well, culture jamming is not about race, it’s not about gender, it’s not about nature. It’s about what I think is the biggest problem right now which is our culture. It used to be that our culture was something that we the people, you know, created from the bottom up. We sang the songs and we told the stories and then we made sure that our elected representatives did the right thing there in passing the laws.
But lately the culture is being spoonfed to us, topped down by advertisers, corporations, the mass media, and in some sense we have actually lost control of our own culture. And culture jamming is a movement to reclaim our culture, to take back the culture from those people who have hijacked it from us.
JOHN TAYLOR: What about privacy? Is that something that culture jammers are concerned about? And the decline of privacy, like in an information age?
CARLY LARSON: Yes. Yes, sure, it’s a factor but by far, I think, a more important factor is media concentration. What we have right now is seven large media mega-corporations like Time-Warner and Disney and the News Corporation and then a few others, and these large media monopolies have pretty well taken over control of most of the information flows on the planet, and so the global information superstructure is pretty well controlled by a handful of these very large corporations now.
And compared to privacy, this kind of media concentration is, I think, by far the factor that makes culture jammers like me really mad.
JOHN TAYLOR: In Australia we have a media proprietor, a billionaire, who is entering into a joint venture project with an American company called Axium …
CARLY LARSON: Mmm.
JOHN TAYLOR: … to create a data warehouse which will contain credit details, spending details, car sales records, on Australian people. Apparently in America it contains personal details of 95 per cent of American households. Is this the sort of concentration and media power that you’re concerned about?
CARLY LARSON: Absolutely. Yes. When a few media tycoons, you know, start controlling the vast … the information flows in a country like Australia or around the globe, then all of a sudden strategies like this become possible. Marketing strategies on a scale that we have never seen before suddenly become possible.
JOHN TAYLOR: And that’s when culture jammers can … will step in?
CARLY LARSON: Yes. Well I think that when, you know, when a nation like Australia is suddenly faced with a situation where their whole mental environment is going to be suddenly monopolised by somebody by the person you’ve described then I can imagine people will have to write up and do something about it.
COMPERE: Author and culture jammer, Carly Larson, talking to John Taylor.
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The above story was retrieved from the Wayback Machine on 3 June 2023 after the ABC removed it from their website.
