One Day, We'll All Invest This Way! Regulating Online Investment. This project will provide policy recommendations to promote national research priority 3: particularly goals 4 & 5. It will do this by using good regulation to increase the safety of online investing services. It will bring to Australia international expertise not available here, crucial to good regulation of online investing. If investors trust this mostly beneficial technology it will further Australians' prosperity through in ....One Day, We'll All Invest This Way! Regulating Online Investment. This project will provide policy recommendations to promote national research priority 3: particularly goals 4 & 5. It will do this by using good regulation to increase the safety of online investing services. It will bring to Australia international expertise not available here, crucial to good regulation of online investing. If investors trust this mostly beneficial technology it will further Australians' prosperity through investment e.g. for retirement. Competitive advantage through good regulation will bring overseas investors to Australia through the Internet. It will consolidate its role as a financial centre. With 51% of adults owning shares, this research could save Australians more than $1.6 billion per annum! Read moreRead less
Creating more consistent privacy principles through better interpretation and law reform: an Australasian initiative to resolve an international problem. More consistent information privacy principles at the core of Australia's privacy laws, and more consistency in interpretation, will result in greater efficiency for business and government, and better protection of human rights and consumer interests. In the health sector, consistency of privacy laws will facilitate better health through the d ....Creating more consistent privacy principles through better interpretation and law reform: an Australasian initiative to resolve an international problem. More consistent information privacy principles at the core of Australia's privacy laws, and more consistency in interpretation, will result in greater efficiency for business and government, and better protection of human rights and consumer interests. In the health sector, consistency of privacy laws will facilitate better health through the development of national online health infrastructure. Australasian privacy scholarship will obtain enhanced international recognition through a pioneering study of the comparative use of privacy case law for cross-national interpretation. 'Model IPPs' will aid the harmonisation of global privacy laws. Read moreRead less
Safeguarding the financial well-being of Australians by improving financial literacy: Implications for consumer protection laws. The project will contribute to a broader understanding of the role of financial literacy in Australia and its relationship with Australia's financial services and consumer protection laws. Having financially literate consumers facilitates the uptake and development of innovative financial products. This is essential for promoting an innovation culture and economy. High ....Safeguarding the financial well-being of Australians by improving financial literacy: Implications for consumer protection laws. The project will contribute to a broader understanding of the role of financial literacy in Australia and its relationship with Australia's financial services and consumer protection laws. Having financially literate consumers facilitates the uptake and development of innovative financial products. This is essential for promoting an innovation culture and economy. Higher levels of financial literacy also enable consumers to plan better for their and their families' financial well-being. This also has national benefit as it means that consumers are better prepared to deal with the adverse financial consequences of job-loss, illness, disablement or death, thus reducing the stresses and demands on Australia's social welfare safety net.Read moreRead less
The Use of Information and Cryptographic Technology to Restrict Competition. This project will deliver the following benefits:
- Improve the understanding of how security technologies can be misapplied to restrict competition;
- Development of an early warning mechanism to assist regulators in determining when anti-competitive behaviour is occurring thorough the use of security technologies;
- provide assistance to the Australian Government, and thus the Australian economy, by developing an i ....The Use of Information and Cryptographic Technology to Restrict Competition. This project will deliver the following benefits:
- Improve the understanding of how security technologies can be misapplied to restrict competition;
- Development of an early warning mechanism to assist regulators in determining when anti-competitive behaviour is occurring thorough the use of security technologies;
- provide assistance to the Australian Government, and thus the Australian economy, by developing an international framework that can be promoted to Australia's major trading partners to achieve a harmonisation of complimentary competitive regulation.
- The provision of criteria for consideration by Australian industry in developing new products that may incorporate security technologies
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Privacy Preserving Data Mining as Autonomous Data Analysis Expands into Safeguarding from Threats like Crime and Terrorism. In a world characterized by digitally coded data, Data Mining allows automatic exploration of huge numbers of personal records for target marketing, as well as demographic, medical and criminal research. Investigations into terrorist attacks use this technology, but a balance with privacy protection is necessary. Even if names and unique identifiers are removed, computer me ....Privacy Preserving Data Mining as Autonomous Data Analysis Expands into Safeguarding from Threats like Crime and Terrorism. In a world characterized by digitally coded data, Data Mining allows automatic exploration of huge numbers of personal records for target marketing, as well as demographic, medical and criminal research. Investigations into terrorist attacks use this technology, but a balance with privacy protection is necessary. Even if names and unique identifiers are removed, computer methods can be used to infer confidential information about individuals. This project develops new techniques to ensure privacy and alleviate public concerns such as secondary use of personal data. We shall develop new methods for replacing original data with data that exhibits approximately the same patterns, but conceals sensitive data.Read moreRead less
Understanding Online Education Through the Lens of Service Separation. This project examines consumer perceptions of and their differential responses to traditional versus online education through the lens of service separation. Service separation implies that the production and consumption of the service do not take place simultaneously. Thus, online course offerings, which are posted on the Internet and accessed remotely by students, represent a separated service. In contrast, traditional educ ....Understanding Online Education Through the Lens of Service Separation. This project examines consumer perceptions of and their differential responses to traditional versus online education through the lens of service separation. Service separation implies that the production and consumption of the service do not take place simultaneously. Thus, online course offerings, which are posted on the Internet and accessed remotely by students, represent a separated service. In contrast, traditional education represents an unseparated service, as the teaching and learning occur simultaneously in the classroom. This project will explain student preference for one mode of education delivery over the other in terms of their psychological motivation. The outcomes of this research are expected to influence the provision of higher education.Read moreRead less
A study of consumers' competence when choosing between complex mobile phone contracts and the regulatory implications of their coping strategies. The main outcome of this project will be a better understanding of which kinds of mobile phone contracts and methods of displaying them to potential users are the biggest sources of decision making errors, and which techniques for coping with a plethora of such contracts are the most reliable ones. This knowledge will be used to derive recommendations ....A study of consumers' competence when choosing between complex mobile phone contracts and the regulatory implications of their coping strategies. The main outcome of this project will be a better understanding of which kinds of mobile phone contracts and methods of displaying them to potential users are the biggest sources of decision making errors, and which techniques for coping with a plethora of such contracts are the most reliable ones. This knowledge will be used to derive recommendations for consumer policy agencies and advice for consumers that will increase financial welfare and reduce mental stress for consumers. Some of the findings may have implications for regulators seeking to design consumer protection policies in other area where firms deliberately offer customers opaque contracts.Read moreRead less
Agri-food Applications of Genetically-Modified Organisms: Public Perceptions, Risk and Sustainability. Agricultural and food biotechnologies are being disseminated throughout Australia - despite growing consumer concerns. Employing a sociological framework, this research will investigate ways genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) - and their associated risks - are perceived by consumers. This Australia-wide study is significant because of the nation's current endorsement of GMOs, the reluctance/ ....Agri-food Applications of Genetically-Modified Organisms: Public Perceptions, Risk and Sustainability. Agricultural and food biotechnologies are being disseminated throughout Australia - despite growing consumer concerns. Employing a sociological framework, this research will investigate ways genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) - and their associated risks - are perceived by consumers. This Australia-wide study is significant because of the nation's current endorsement of GMOs, the reluctance/inability of science to recognise lay concerns, and the likelihood that some biotechnologies will compromise environmental sustainability. Outcomes will include: conceptual advances in relation to risk and trust; an understanding of consumer acceptance/rejection of GMOs; and, recognition of the potential for agri-food biotechnologies to contribute to sustainability.Read moreRead less
Privately owned public space: noise cancellation over multiple regions. This project aims to advance fundamental research in active noise control over spatial regions. It has a broad range of industry applications, such as eliminating road and engine noise for multiple passengers inside car/airplane cabins, and creating individual quiet zones in a public environment. It will focus on developing new theories and techniques to generate multiple quiet zones in indoor/outdoor noisy environments with ....Privately owned public space: noise cancellation over multiple regions. This project aims to advance fundamental research in active noise control over spatial regions. It has a broad range of industry applications, such as eliminating road and engine noise for multiple passengers inside car/airplane cabins, and creating individual quiet zones in a public environment. It will focus on developing new theories and techniques to generate multiple quiet zones in indoor/outdoor noisy environments with performance prediction, robust control, and effective implementation. In many practical applications, especially in consumer electronics and medical instruments, the creation of quiet zones is desirable so that in a shared environment people can have their own audio space without physical isolation or using headphones, creating a healthy living and working environment.Read moreRead less
Access to Justice Without Lawyers: Understanding Legal Self-Help in Australia. While legal self-help is extensively practised, it is not well understood. Some people choose to do their own legal work while others have no option. The project will use case studies to identify the circumstances (in terms of context, user characteristics and available support) in which self-help is most likely to benefit the user as well as where such self-help should not be promoted. The project will benefit govern ....Access to Justice Without Lawyers: Understanding Legal Self-Help in Australia. While legal self-help is extensively practised, it is not well understood. Some people choose to do their own legal work while others have no option. The project will use case studies to identify the circumstances (in terms of context, user characteristics and available support) in which self-help is most likely to benefit the user as well as where such self-help should not be promoted. The project will benefit governments, courts, private companies, legal aid commissions, community legal centres and other agencies, all of which provide information services designed to assist people to handle law-related work themselves. Read moreRead less