Today's national government media release regarding COVID, offering an insight into public health promotion, states
An important education campaign will be rolled out to inform Australians ahead of the COVID-19 vaccination program.
The vaccination roll-out will be a complex task and it will be important that people understand the process with the first vaccinations on track for early next year.
Minister for Health, Greg Hunt said the Mid-Year Fiscal and Economic Outlook 20-21 (MYEFO) reinforces the Australian Government’s commitment to continue to protect the community and get lives back to normal through this pandemic.
“The information campaign, with funding of $23.9 million, will work in partnership with the states and medical experts, to explain the regulatory processes, the priority groups, timing and roll-out to assist people to understand how the vaccines work, and to be ready for when they can receive the vaccine,” said Minister Hunt.
“The vaccines will be voluntary and free, we encourage people to have the vaccine to protect themselves and their family.”
“It is essential that people understand that Australia’s medical regulatory processes need to occur before the vaccines are approved for use. We are receiving data from overseas and this will assist in finalising the priority groups for the vaccinations, putting our health and aged care workers in the first wave along with elderly Australians who are at most risk from the virus,” Minister Hunt said.
The COVID-19 vaccine communications will include a national advertising campaign and communication specifically targeting priority groups, culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Over $40 million in funding is being provided to streamline processes necessary to the approval and distribution, so the clinical information can be assessed in real time.
The funding for Services Australia, the Australian Digital Health Agency and Therapeutic Goods Administration will allow necessary enhancements aimed at reducing existing manual processes and improving digital integration across these systems.
The Government is also improving critical capacity requirements for the Australian Immunisation Register, as the Government’s central resource for recording COVID-19 vaccinations so people will have a record of their vaccination. This will be essential as all current vaccines planned for Australia require a two-vaccine process.
The Government is securing 20 million additional doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. This brings the total number of doses to 53.8 million – enough for the entire Australian population.
The extra 20 million doses will be produced in Australia by CSL.
Additionally, a further 11 million doses of the Novavax vaccine will be purchased, bringing the total for this vaccine to 51 million. This will be an additional whole-of-population vaccine should it be proven to be safe and effective.
A purchasing agreement is also in place for the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, with 10 million doses scheduled for early 2021.
Building Australia’s vaccine manufacturing capacity
The Australian Government is investing $1 billion to ensure Australia’s capacity to manufacture vaccines in the future, though its supply agreement with Seqirus.
The Government will extend the current supply agreement with Seqirus, ensuring long-term, onshore manufacturing and supply of products of national significance including pandemic influenza vaccines, Q fever vaccines, and Australian-specific antivenoms from 1 July 2024 through to 2036. Under this agreement, Seqirus will invest more than $800 million in a new state-of-the-art biotech manufacturing facility in Melbourne.
In the United States the House of Representatives Committee on Veterans' Affairs report 'Hijacking Our Heroes: Exploiting Veterans Through Disinformation on Social Media' states
The threat of foreign individuals and organizations influencing United States (U.S.) elections by manipulating social media has been a persistent and growing issue since before the 2016 election year. The threat was a significant concern during the 2020 elections.
Recent investigations and analysis document the broad proliferation of online influence campaigns that originate overseas. This includes the use of "spoofing,'' or the act of disguising an electronic communication from an unknown source as being from a known, trusted source. A subset of these operations target the veteran and military service member communities in order to misappropriate their voices, authority and credibility. The pervasiveness of social media, as well as the nature of the specific threat to our election integrity and the sowing of political discord makes this a critical issue affecting both veterans and those who value veterans' voices. As described by Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Mark Takano (D-CA), "the issue of protecting our elections from foreign influence is one of critical importance to all Americans and preserving the power of veterans' voices should be of equal concern to us all.''
VETERANS ARE SPECIFICALLY TARGETED FOR SPOOFING
On Wednesday, November 13, 2019, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held an investigative hearing to examine the nature and scope of threats posed to the veterans' community through "internet spoofing.'' Experts testified that stolen, misappropriated, or fraudulently created social media accounts can be used to target veterans for the purposes of disseminating political propaganda and fake news in order to influence elections. The witnesses also described romance scams and commercial fraud being perpetrated using spoofing techniques. Representatives of three major social media platforms--Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter--discussed how they are addressing this threat, particularly considering the 2020 elections, and described best practices for information sharing, protective measures, and law enforcement cooperation. The Committee later held a briefing on January 14, 2020, with representatives from several components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that handle law enforcement for online crimes.
Ranking Member Dr. David P. Roe (R-TN) noted during the hearing, "The evidence is clear that veterans have their identity misappropriated and that they, like other social media users, could be targets for propaganda or scams."Although everyone who uses the internet is subject to online scams, spamming, phishing, identity theft, and other such risks, veterans are particularly susceptible to internet spoofing based on their higher propensity for political engagement (including running for office, volunteering, and sharing political opinions and information). For the purposes of disseminating political propaganda or exerting influence on dividing Americans on sensitive political "wedge issues,'' veterans are targeted because of their close identification with strong national security policies, patriotism, personal sacrifice, and honor. Chairman Takano stated during the hearing, "By impersonating veterans, these foreign actors are effectively eroding the hard-earned power and integrity of veterans'' voices.''
Veterans are more likely to be engaged in their communities, be perceived as leaders, and can exert influence on political matters (particularly with respect to defense and national security matters). Therefore, a successful spoofing scam that results in a veteran or Veteran Service Organization (VSO) unknowingly distributing or endorsing a piece of disinformation can yield greatly increased, and sometimes even exponential, results due to the added credibility imparted to that disinformation by virtue of its approval by the veteran or VSO. With each successive endorsement or share, the credibility of the disinformation snowballs. The collective association with actual veterans and VSOs makes it increasingly unlikely that the disinformation will be closely scrutinized, questioned, or eventually exposed as fraudulent or misleading. Moreover, scammers also try to spoof veterans to gain leverage over them. Many veterans move into jobs requiring security clearances or within the federal government after they leave the military--those positions can be jeopardized if the veteran is compromised through financial fraud, identity theft, or otherwise becomes susceptible to blackmail.
SPOOFING OF VETERANS THREATEN U.S. ELECTIONS
Internet spoofing became a visible problem in the context of the 2016 U.S. election, when foreign disinformation spread widely across social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, among others. However, disinformation on social media and information operations conducted by sophisticated actors have occurred for far longer. In the past few years, foreign information operations have targeted divisive political issues within American society and have sought to manipulate and divide political and social communities. Unfortunately, our military and veterans' communities are no exception. Moreover, the incidents of foreign spoofing increased following the 2016 election, and industry experts project that these numbers will continue to increase through 2020 and beyond. Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company which has engaged in online influence operations, more commonly known as a "troll farm,'' dramatically expanded its information operations after the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections, both in terms of volume and intensity. Russia and Iran are the most prominent state actors in this context, but recent work has identified additional state actors, such as China and Saudi Arabia, using information operations to target communities and topics of interests.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence published a five-volume bipartisan report focused on Russia's influence operations. The second volume focused on Russia's use of social media platforms to influence the election, while the third volume focused on the shortcomings of Obama Administration efforts to combat the ongoing attacks. The third volume highlighted the lack of legislative or regulatory action to combat a known threat emanating from Russia and its intelligence services. The Senate Report sheds light on the broader issues of misinformation campaigns and predatory schemes targeting veterans presented in a report prepared by the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).
ACTION BY LAW ENFORCEMENT AND SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS IS INADEQUATE
Industry analysts, journalists, and law enforcement agree that the problems of internet spoofing and foreign influence exerted through social media continue to grow at an alarming pace. However, neither the major platforms nor the FBI were able to identify an obvious or comprehensive solution to this ongoing problem. Both continue to devote significant resources towards combatting spoofing. However, the foreign entities who perpetrate much of this illicit activity are becoming more sophisticated in their schemes and are targeting broader swaths of internet users to more quickly and efficiently disseminate their fraudulent messaging before they are identified and deactivated.
Facebook and Twitter note that automated systems can struggle to differentiate authentic images and accounts from fraudulent, unauthorized, or duplicated accounts and thereby risk erroneously flagging and removing legitimate accounts. The platforms have chosen to err on the side of minimizing false negatives by relying upon patterns of suspicious activity and certain tactics or techniques, rather than on other identifying data (e.g., duplicative names or images, geolocation information, or ostensible organizational affiliations). Suspicious activity patterns, such as irregular, repetitive, or voluminous posting, triggers additional layers of review, including an examination of the geolocation data in order to assess where the suspicious activity may be originating. The final review and removal decisions sometimes warrant human examination, but often removals are made without any human review. Although these layered review processes may be effective in protecting legitimate users, they undoubtedly also add a significant gap in removal time for fraudulent accounts, which provides a window within which spoofers can continue to operate.
Law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, are constrained in their abilities to efficiently identify and eliminate spoofers because the agencies only have limited access to the data held by the social media platforms. Often these agencies do not receive important information until after the platforms have already removed a spoofed account, at which point law enforcement is unable to actively monitor and trace the account in real time.
The ability of spoofers to operate from overseas, anonymously, or by using fraudulent or concealed identities requires law enforcement to rely upon account identification data and detailed activity patterns in order to accurately identify or locate the potential spoofer. However, Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) (18 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 2701-2713), known as the Stored Communications Act, requires a government entity to serve a subpoena on social media platforms to compel the production of certain relevant information. Requiring a time-consuming legal process to obtain identification data hampers the ability of law enforcement to respond quickly or to fully understand the scope of a potential spoofing campaign. Therefore, the law enforcement agencies recommend increasing the amount and level of detail that the platforms can easily provide to the authorities.
Past attempts to address this problem have been piecemeal in nature and have proven ineffective to date. This fragmented approach has prevented any wholesale, systemic efforts to tighten rules or law enforcement protocols. Incremental adjustments have been made by individual platforms, which leaves an irregular landscape where motivated, corrupt actors may still be able to exploit weaknesses among the platforms.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS SHOULD TAKE ADDITIONAL ACTION
Based on discussions with representatives of law enforcement, and considering the issues raised by the social media platforms during the hearing, the Committee believes that there are additional measures needed to address the growing threats posed by spoofing. Our recommendations fall into two broad categories.
The first category is oriented at users of social media and is defensive in nature, such as teaching users how to be aware of the dangers posed by spoofers on social media and training them how to protect themselves through heightened vigilance, healthy skepticism, and adherence to basic principles of cyber- hygiene.
1. Improve Awareness through a Public Service Announcement Campaign
2. Develop Cyber-hygiene Training
3. Strengthen Partnership Between Social Media Platforms and VSOs
The second category is aimed at putting the social media platforms and law enforcement on the offensive and developing robust mechanisms to more effectively identify and quickly eliminate foreign-based spoofers. While the first category is likely to be less costly and easier to implement, the second category may ultimately prove to be more effective in bringing the threat under control.
4. Improve Reviews of Accounts by Social Media Platforms
5. Consider Legislative Reforms to Facilitate Sharing Information
6. Increase Data Sharing on Fraudulent Accounts
7. Improve Identity Verification and Geolocation Identification
The recommendations in more detail are
Recommendations and solutions to the threat of internet spoofing fall into two broad categories. The first category is oriented at users of social media and is defensive in nature, such as teaching users how to be aware of the dangers posed by spoofers on social media and training them how to protect themselves through heightened vigilance, healthy skepticism, and adherence to basic principles of cyber-hygiene. The second category is aimed at putting the social media platforms and law enforcement on the offensive and developing robust mechanisms to more effectively identify and eliminate foreign-based spoofers quickly. While the first category is likely to be less costly and easier to implement, the second category may ultimately prove to be more effective in bringing the threat under control.
Improve Awareness
1. Improve Awareness through a Public Service Announcement Campaign--As noted by several Committee Members, FBI representatives, and testifying witnesses, the problem of spoofing is exacerbated by a general lack of public awareness of the issue and unfamiliarity with how to assess online content in order to evaluate authenticity. Warnings of the risk that social media content may not actually be from legitimate sources or be deliberately planted for exploitative purposes can be effectively and efficiently communicated through a public awareness campaign, such as through public service announcements (PSA). These public awareness campaigns can be distributed through the social media platforms themselves, or more comprehensively through other media outlets and agencies, such as VA.
2. Develop Cyber-hygiene Training--VA and the Department of Defense should develop robust and comprehensive cyber-hygiene training. This would go beyond the basic information provided by public awareness campaigns. For example, agencies could provide training on best practices in protecting personal and financial information, how to read and review content online with an eye towards verification, and how to engage the platforms themselves when needed to remove spoofed accounts, fraudulent posts, or other deceptive content.
3. Strengthen Partnerships Between Social Media Platforms and VSOs--A strong partnership could include an ongoing process for VSOs to contribute their expertise and familiarity to assist the social media platforms in their efforts to address spoofing. The social media platforms noted that it can be difficult to differentiate legitimate content from veterans or VSOs from spoofed content purporting to be from the veterans' community. There are ample resources within the broader veterans' community to help advise and consult with the platforms on such questions.
Strengthen Prevention and Enforcement Methods
4. Improve Reviews of Accounts by Social Media Platforms-- The social media platforms should implement stronger reviews of accounts that pose substantial risk of spoofing. This should include the adoption of industry-developed best practices involving accounts that control groups or pages with very large reach in order to closely scrutinize activity on these groups or pages to quickly identify potential patterns of suspicious behavior. Given the influence and reach, any such groups or pages that meet or exceed certain thresholds of followership should have their controlling accounts be officially verified by the social media platforms, and the details of such verification (ownership, geolocation, moderators, etc.) be publicly available for all users.
5. Consider Legislative Reforms to Facilitate Sharing Information--Congress should consider appropriate modifications to the federal laws that currently limit the social media platforms' ability to freely share data with law enforcement agencies or other peer platforms in order to detect, prevent, or remove fraudulent or spoofed content in a timely and efficient manner. Federal law is murky on how the privacy rights of users intersect with law enforcement needs with respect to data or identification information in cases of potential illegal activity or fraud. The platforms have generally erred on the side of maintaining user privacy in the absence of a clear legal requirement to provide such data to law enforcement agencies. However, there are certain inconsistencies in the existing laws governing voluntary disclosures to law enforcement which contribute to challenges and delays. Congress could align the scope of voluntary disclosure of information to law enforcement under the respective provisions of Title II of ECPA to facilitate greater transparency and timely information sharing with law enforcement. This would essentially allow holders of electronic communications and records to voluntarily release the data associated with fraudulent, spoofed, or misappropriated accounts to law enforcement agencies and potentially also to their enforcement counterparts at peer platforms, when criminal activity or other imminent harm is reasonably suspected. However, any new legislation in this area or any change to the ECPA statute must be both narrow in scope and include strong safeguards to protect the personal privacy and civil rights concerns of users.
6. Increase Data Sharing on Fraudulent Accounts--Social media platforms should improve their sharing of identified fraudulent and spoofed accounts with other platforms and law enforcement to the extent permissible under current statutes, both in terms of frequency of sharing and the scope of the data that is shared. Although ECPA protects underlying identifying information, there is other information about spoofed accounts that can still be shared. Increasing the scope and timeliness of shared information pertaining to accounts that have been identified, and likely removed as fraudulent or spoofed, would enhance cross-platform detection. Additionally, consistent protocols could be established around communication between the platforms and law enforcement, and amongst the platforms, to ensure that information is shared on a regular and timely basis, rather than only in response to crises or incidents. This sharing of information should be narrow in scope and include strong safeguards to protect the personal privacy and civil rights concerns of users.
7. Improve Identity Verification and Geolocation Identification--Social media platforms should improve their verification of identities, affiliations, and geolocation for all accounts. This would create a consistent and more robust version of the verification and checkmark system that was previously employed in various permutations by Twitter and Facebook. This would make it more difficult for foreign actors to disguise or misrepresent their locations and consequently their identities). The geolocation and account ownership information should then be readily available to users and to law enforcement, to increase transparency and foreclose intentional concealment of where an account is based.
