The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is tasked with overseeing the Australian electoral system, specifically the activities of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).
Its Status Report [PDF], released on Friday, follows the November publication of the Report on the conduct of the 2016 federal election and matters related thereto [PDF], which made 31 recommendations to the AEC regarding cybersecurity, in particular where the manipulation of elections was concerned.
One of the recommendations made by the committee was that the Australian government establish a permanent taskforce to “prevent and combat cyber manipulation in Australia’s democratic process” and to “provide transparent, post-election findings regarding any pertinent incidents”.
Specifically, the taskforce, the committee wrote, would focus on “systemic privacy breaches”.
Source: ZDNet
