MeetUp – 2025 Review: Lessons, Trends and Reading for the Year Ahead

Description

This year has seen several milestones in Australia’s responsible-AI landscape, including the recent releases of the AI Plan for the Australian Public Service and the National AI Centre’s Guidance for AI Adoption – Implementation Practices for all organisations.  Together with the operationalisation of the Australian Government’s AI Assurance Framework and the AI Technical Standard for Government Use of AI released by the Digital Transformation Agency, these initiatives are building the foundations for transparent, accountable and risk-aware adoption of AI across government and industry.

Internationally, 2025 marked the implementation of the EU AI Act, the launch of the G7 Code of Conduct for AI Developers, and the creation of the U.S. National AI Safety and Security Board, which now coordinates CISA and NIST activities on AI assurance.

In privacy and cybersecurity, the Privacy Act reform process continues, with Tranche 2 reforms still awaiting government introduction to Parliament following consultations earlier in the year. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) issued its 2025–26 Cybersecurity Guidance, and CISA’s Secure-by-Design initiative continued to drive alignment between cybersecurity, privacy, and AI risk management.

We’ll unpack what these developments mean for information-governance professionals across the public and private sectors, including implications for record-keeping, data quality, assurance, and oversight under the APS Code of Conduct Principle 4 (Managing Information) and obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and APP 6 on the use and disclosure of personal information.

We’ll also launch the InfoGovANZ 2026 Reading List, featuring books that capture the ethical, technical and governance challenges of AI in practice.

This interactive session will invite members to nominate books for our Good Reads 2026 Book Review Series, which will kick off in mid-January.

Note:
This is an interactive discussion-based session. Participants are required to have their video cameras on to support active engagement.
The MeetUp will be conducted under Chatham House Rule and will not be recorded, to enable open discussion and the free exchange of views.