Just When You Thought The Government’s Cybersafety Button Project Couldn’t Get Dumber…


We all know that the government’s Cybersafety Help Button scheme is a bit of a farce. Kids are encouraged to download the “button”, which when pushed directs kids to a website that told them how to stay safe online. Not exactly cutting-edge tech to keep our kids safe online. What’s really unfortunate is how the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy handled the whole project: turns out that the department may not have been given any source code for the project whatsoever according to new Freedom of Information data.

Network engineer Mark Newton has just got back an interesting letter following a Freedom of Information request that sought to get information about the Cybersafety Help Button’s source code. Curiously, the Department doesn’t actually seem to have any of that source code kicking about, which begs the question, did it receive any in the first place?

While it’s feasible to think that an agency built the Help Button and kept the creative as part of the contract terms, it’s slightly insulting to think that we paid over $170,000 for the agency to have a shiny new template. Read the full FoI transcript for more. [Mark Newton]


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