Australian businesses prepare for the new privacy regime
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Minter Ellison has been a major provider of legal services in the communications sector since the introduction of competition in the telecommunications industry in Australia in 1992.
We act for telecommunications companies throughout the Asia-Pacific region across all legal practice areas and all types of telecommunications infrastructure, including fixed, wireless, satellite and international cable networks. We have played a major role in the merger and acquisition activity associated with both the growth and consolidation of the telecommunications sector in Australia. We are well respected for our detailed industry knowledge and expertise and ability to structure and negotiate innovative transactions that drive significant business value.
As well as acting for carriers, service providers, infrastructure owners and manufacturers, we have extensive experience acting for purchasers of telecommunications services. We have advised a significant number of major Australian and multinational corporations in a wide range of industry sectors on managed service and full service outsourcings of both domestic and global telecommunications requirements.
A report by the Victorian Ombudsman has identified five underlying factors which contributed to difficulties experienced in government ICT projects. The report, Own Motion Investigation into ICT – Enabled Projects, released on 22 November, was prepared in consultation with the Victorian Auditor-General. It examines 10 major Victorian Government ICT projects that experienced difficulties such as budget and timeframe blowouts or failure to meet requirements.
On 12 October 2011 the Hon. Robert McClelland MP, Commonwealth Attorney General, launched a public consultation paper proposing amendments to Part V Division 2AA of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth)to extend the application of the safe harbour scheme to entities providing network access and online services.
Many organisations are transferring non-critical applications to various cloud computing models, whilst still maintaining business critical applications within their current infrastructure. Cloud computing models exist along a spectrum that includes public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds and virtual private clouds (a private cloud existing in a public cloud).
The Federal Government is developing a new media and communications policy framework in Australia, in response to changes in the way consumers use and access television, radio, the internet and telecommunications services. Its newly appointed Convergence Review Committee recently released an Emerging Issues paper, and it plans to conduct public hearings and prepare detailed discussion papers.
