The UK’s intelligence and security agencies are under fire this week following a ruling from an oversight court which labeled bulk data collection activities conducted by UK intelligence on citizens between 1988 and November 2015 both unlawful and a breach of domestic human rights. The timing could not be worse for the UK government who are looking to pass an increasingly controversial Investigatory Powers bill before the end of the year.

Alongside the UK government controversy, Facebook remains in hot water in the EU over apparent privacy legislation breaches related to unauthorized data collection. This ZDNet piece covers Facebook’s rolling battle with courts throughout Europe and the potential implications of the new GDPR regime which will come into effect in 2018.

Back in Oz, this week’s conversation around data regulation centered squarely on account number portability and mandated open access to data in the financial sector. With interest reignited by the recent parliamentary inquiry into major banks, the AFR delivered a thoughtful piece on the risks and opportunities associated the policy reform.

In other news…

Hyper Anna, a Certified Partner of Data Republic, has closed its first external seed funding round attracting $1.25 million from Westpac’s venture capital arm, Reinventure and AirTree Ventures. Often described as Siri as for business analytics, if you haven’t heard of Hyper Anna we recommend you check them out.

Until next time.