Ange Lavoipierre is the national technology reporter for ABC News. They're also the host and EP of Schmeitgeist, an ABC podcast exploring trends and phenomena in tech and internet culture. Previously, she presented the ABC's first daily news podcast, The Signal.
Ange has been an ABC journalist for 15 years, filing for news and current affairs programs ranging from triple j's Hack to Background Briefing. You can follow Ange on X or Threads at @angelavoipierre, or contact her securely on Proton Mail.
While the teen social media ban has passed parliament, questions are being asked about how the age of all users will be verified — and even the viability of the new law.
The Privacy Commissioner finds Bunnings Warehouse interfered with the privacy of its customers by using facial recognition without consent in 63 of its stores over a three-year period.
The "Digital Duty of Care" has the potential to be the most meaningful change to online safety laws in Australian history — even if it doesn't exactly go viral, writes national technology reporter Ange Lavoipierre.
The government has taken a big step towards its goal of getting children and young teenagers off social media and revealed who would be covered by the ambitious ban.
Labor has backed setting the social media minimum age cut-off at 16 years old, with legislation set to be introduced this month.
A tech tax might be the federal government’s path out of a six-month stalemate with Meta over the company’s refusal to pay for Australian news, writes Ange Lavoipierre.
As a social media summit this week discusses the merits of Australia's proposed world-leading ban for teenagers, Ange Lavoipierre asks: why have so few others made it down this path?
Ever received a scam text from Australia Post while you're waiting for a package? Or a fake toll notice after you've driven on a toll road? Experts say data collected by the online advertising industry could be behind it.
The federal opposition has called for urgent action to prevent the personal data of Australia's national security personnel being on-sold to foreign actors after a new report exposed a blackmail risk.
Instagram is introducing automatic 'teen accounts' for underage users from today in Australia, the US, the UK and Canada, but the federal government says it will have little impact on its plans for age restrictions for social media.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen smuggled out tens of thousands of documents that proved the tech giant knew the harms the platform caused to children. Years later she says Australia is at risk of fumbling an opportunity to regulate social media.
Australian businesses are paying untold amounts in ransom to hackers but the government hopes to regain some control with a landmark cybersecurity law.
Cybersecurity experts have found advertisements claiming to re-sell highly sensitive data of millions of Australians, stolen from eScripts provider MediSecure, on the dark web, and now it's half price.
Friday afternoon felt frighteningly similar to the 12-minute mark in a disaster movie. The difference is that in the movie, a villain is pulling the strings, but in reality, the culprit was far closer to home.
Experts say AI is the "largest gold rush in the history of capitalism", and that Australia is falling behind. But there's something else we're also trailing the pack on: the time it takes to manage privacy settings on websites.
eScripts provider MediSecure has revealed 12.9 million Australians had personal data stolen in a cyber breach earlier this year, making it one of the largest data hacks in Australian history.
The discovery of photos of Australian children in a gargantuan dataset being used to train leading AI models has given rise to a blame game and some divisive questions.
The privacy of Australian children is being violated on a large scale, with their personal images — and sometimes their names and locations — being used to train the AI powering most of the world's image-generators.
On the very first day of public hearings for the much-vaunted Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant compared banning children younger than 16 from social media to banning them from the ocean.
This week in tech news, a global survey shows Australians are less comfortable with AI-generated news than the rest of the world, while Meta navigates the next steps in rolling out its AI trial and the US Surgeon-General calls for social media warning labels for teens.
Apple is finally making its big AI move, and it matters more than most flashy big tech launches for two reasons.
Most of the country has bought cheap tickets to the hotly-anticipated action blockbuster, eSafety v Elon Musk, filmed on location at the Australian Federal Court.
A pro-Russian campaign is targeting Australian news organisations, including the ABC, according to international researchers.
The rise of social media and smartphones has coincided with an accelerating decline in teenagers' mental health — and researchers are trying to figure out whether the technology is to blame.
The eSafety Commissioner's fight against X over videos of the Wakeley stabbing just got messier, with two new groups from the other side of the world granted leave to join the case.