Late last year, the film industry in Australia won its first legal battle against piracy and unauthorised downloading practices since the amendment of the Copyright Act in June 2015.

Electronic signatures, also known as eSignatures, are a simple means by which documents can be legally signed. In this era, where rapidly growing technology is having a high impact on the business world, eSignatures have allowed for a faster more efficient way for people to legally complete and exchange a range of contracts, approvals, agreements and transactions.

Online providers have been warned that advertising the lowest price on a web landing page, then adding admin costs, insurance, booking fees and other expenses as you work through the booking process will be consider unfavourably by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (‘ACCC’).

Readers would be familiar with the contents of the SPAM Act. Essentially, the Act requires that an electronic communication must not be sent without the consent of the recipient, it must contain clear and accurate information about the person or organisation that authorised the sending of the message, and it must contain an “opt out” or “unsubscribe” provision so the recipient can choose not to receive emails in the future.

It`s important to pay attention to the way the personal information of your company is secured. If you mishandle the confidential information of your customers, it can cause them a financial or reputational loss and lead to a decreasing of trust and considerable harm to your good name.

It is well established under Australia law that secondary publishers can be held liable for defamatory material if they had actual or constructive knowledge of the defamatory matter. This was the crux of Dr Janice Duffy’s multi-year legal battle in the Supreme Court of South Australia with internet search giant, Google.

Metadata Retention

On October 13th, the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (Cth) legislated for the retention of metadata by telecommunications carriers and internet service providers (telcos) for a mandatory period of two years. This data will then be made available to federal, state and territory police, Medicare, Councils in NSW, Worksafe Victoria, the RSPCA, the Tax Office, Australia Post, domestic spy agency ASIO, ASIC and many others when conducting criminal and financial investigations.

Tips

• Take the time to develop an understanding of the cyber threats that could affect your business.
• Work with your clients or board to create a solid cyber-security program that involves the board, management, IT team and employees. A holistic and inclusive approach is required to ensure that proper and functional policies are in place that can and will be complied with.
• Within this ever changing space, continued vigilance and attention to new and current methods, policies, systems and procedures is fundamental if organisations are to minimise the chance of a cyber-attack.

Small businesses are becoming increasingly vulnerable to unfair terms in standard form contracts.  The Government has got closer to addressing this vulnerability by extending the unfair contract protection to include small business contracts.  But what is a small business? And what types of clauses are void?

On the 6^th July 2015, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) released an Information Paper in relation to Outsourcing. It noted that in recent years there has been a significant change in the way that technology is being employed with shared computing services (SCS) being increasingly utilised by a range of business entities.