This month marks a decade since Netflix – the world’s most influential and widely subscribed streaming service – launched in Australia.

Since then the media landscape has undergone significant transformation, particularly in terms of how we consume content. According to a 2024 Deloitte report, Australians aged 16–38 spent twice as much time watching subscription streaming services as free-to-air TV (both live and on-demand).

Part of the success of streaming services lies in their ability to provide content that feels handpicked. And this is made possible through the use of sophisticated recommender systems fuelled by vast amounts of user data.

As streaming viewership continues to rise, so too do the risks associated with how these platforms collect and handle user data.

Changing methods of data collection

Subscription streaming platforms aren’t the first to collect user data. They just do it differently.

Broadcasters have always been invested in collecting viewers’ information (via TV ratings) to inform promotional schedules and attract potential advertisers. These data are publicly available.

In Australia, TV data are collected anonymously via the OzTam TV ratings system, based on the viewing habits of more than 12,000 individuals.

Each television in a recruited household is connected to a metering box. Members of the household select a letter that corresponds to them, after which the box records their viewing data, including the program, channel and viewing time. But this system doesn’t include broadcasters’ video-on-demand services, which have been around since the late 2000s (with ABC iView being the first).

In 2016 a new system was launched to measure broadcast video-on-demand data separately from OzTam ratings.

However, it collected data in a rolling seven-day report, in the form of total minutes a particular program had been watched online (rather than the number of individuals watching, as was the measurement for TV). This meant the two data sources couldn’t be combined.

In 2018, OzTAM and Nielsen announced the Virtual Australia (VoZ) database which would integrate both broadcast TV and video-on-demand data. It took six years following the announcement for the VoZ system to become the industry’s official trading currency.

Streamers’ approach

Streaming platforms such as Netflix have a markedly different approach to acquiring data, as they can source it directly from users. These data are therefore much more granular, larger in volume, and far less publicly accessible due to commercial confidence.

In recent years, Netflix has shared some of its viewing data through a half-yearly report titled What We Watched. It offers macro-level details such as total hours watched that year, as well as information about specific content, including how many times a particular show was viewed.

Netflix also supplies information to its shareholders, although much of this focuses on subscriber numbers rather than specific user details.

The best publicly accessible Netflix data we have is presented on its Tudum website, which includes global Top 10 lists that can be filtered by country.

The main data Netflix doesn’t share are related to viewer demographics: who is watching what programs.

Why does it matter?

Ratings and user data offer valuable insights to both broadcasters and streaming services, and can influence decisions regarding what content is produced.

User data would presumably have been a significant factor in Netflix‘s decision to move into live content such as stand-up comedy, the US National Football League (NFL) and an exclusive US$5 billion deal with World Wrestling Entertainment.

Streaming companies also use personal data to provide users with targeted viewing suggestions, with an aim to reduce the time users spend browsing catalogues.

Netflix has an entire research department dedicated to enhancing user experience. According to Justin Basilico, Netflix’s Director of Machine Learning and Recommender Systems, more than 80% of what Netflix users watch is driven by its recommender system.

As noted in its privacy statement, Netflix draws on a range of information to provide recommendations, including:

• the user’s interactions with the service, such as their viewing history and title ratings
• other users with similar tastes and preferences
• information about the titles, such as genre, categories, actors and release year
• the time of day the user is watching
• the language/s the user prefers
• the device/s they are watching on
• how long they watch a particular Netflix title.

If a user isn’t happy with their recommendations, they can try to change them by editing their viewing and ratings history.

Personalised or predetermined?

The rise of streaming hasn’t only transformed how we watch TV, but also how our viewing habits are tracked and how this information informs future decisions.

While traditional broadcasters have long relied on sample anonymised data to measure engagement, streaming platforms operate in a landscape in which detailed user data can be used to shape content, recommendations and business decisions.

While personalisation makes streaming more appealing, it also raises important questions about privacy, transparency and control. How much do streaming platforms really know about us? And are they catering to our preferences – or shaping them?

Marc C-Scott, Associate Professor of Screen Media | Deputy Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching, Victoria University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Part of the world’s biggest mega-science facility – the SKA Observatory – is being built in outback Western Australia.

After decades of planning, countless hours of work, and more than a few setbacks, an early working version of the telescope has captured its first glimpse of the sky.

Using 1,024 of what will eventually be 131,072 radio antennas, the first SKA-Low image shows a tiny sliver of sky dotted with ancient galaxies billions of light-years from Earth.

This first snapshot shows the system works, and will improve dramatically in the coming months and years – and starts a new chapter in our exploration of the universe.

A glimpse of the universe

The SKA-Low telescope is currently under construction on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia, around 600 kilometres north of Perth. Together with the SKA-Mid telescope (under construction in South Africa), the two telescopes will make up the world’s largest and most sensitive radio observatory.

SKA-Low will consist of thousands of antennas spread across a vast area. It is designed to detect low-frequency radio signals from some of the most distant and ancient objects in the universe.

The first image, made using just 1,024 of the planned 131,000 antennas, is remarkably clear, confirming that the complex systems for transmitting and processing data from the antennas are working properly. Now we can move on to more detailed observations to analyse and verify the telescope’s scientific output.

Bright galaxies, billions of years old

The image shows a patch of the sky, approximately 25 square degrees in area, as seen in radio waves.

Twenty-five square degrees is an area of sky that would fit 100 full Moons. For comparison, it would be about the area of sky that a small apple would cover if you held it at arm’s length.

The dots in the image look like stars, but are actually some of the brightest galaxies in the universe. These galaxies are billions of light-years away, so the galaxies we are seeing now were emitting this light when the universe was half its current age.

They are so bright because each of these distant galaxies contains a supermassive black hole. Gas orbiting around black holes is very hot and moves very quickly, emitting energy in X-rays and radio waves. SKA-Low can detect these radio waves that have travelled billions of light years across the universe to reach Earth.

The world’s largest radio telescope

SKA-Low and SKA-Mid are both being built by the SKAO, a global project to build cutting-edge telescopes that will revolutionise our understanding of the universe and deliver benefits to society. (SKA stands for “square kilometre array”, describing the initial estimated collecting area of all the antennas and radio dishes put together.)

My own involvement in the project began in 2014. Since then I, along with many local and international colleagues, have deployed and verified several prototype systems on the path to SKA-Low. To now be part of the team that is making the first images with the rapidly growing telescope is extremely satisfying.

A complex system with no moving parts

SKA-Low will be made up of 512 aperture arrays (or stations), each comprised of 256 antennas.

Unlike traditional telescopes, aperture arrays have no moving parts, which makes them easier to maintain. The individual antennas receive signals from all directions at once and – to produce images – we use complex mathematics to combine the signals from each individual antenna and “steer” the telescope.

The advantages and flexibility of aperture arrays come at the cost of complex signal processing and software systems. Any errors in signal timing, calibration or processing can distort the final image or introduce noise.

For this reason, the successful production of the first image is a key validation – it can only happen if the entire system is working.

The shape of the universe and beyond

Once completed, SKA-Low promises to transform our understanding of the early universe.

The antennas of the full telescope will be spread across an area approximately 70 kilometres in diameter, making it the most sensitive low-frequency radio array ever built.

This unprecedented sensitivity to low-frequency radio signals will allow scientists to detect the faint signals from the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Bang – the so-called “cosmic dawn”. SKA-Low will be the first radio telescope capable of imaging this very early period of our universe.

It will also help map the large-scale structure of the universe. We expect the telescope will also provide new insights into cosmic magnetism, the behaviour of interstellar gas, and the mysterious nature of dark matter and dark energy.

The sensitivity and resolution of SKA-Low gives it a huge discovery potential. Seven out of the top 10 discoveries from the Hubble Space Telescope were not part of the original science motivation. Like the HST, SKA-Low promises to be a transformative telescope. Who knows what new discoveries await?

What’s next

SKA-Low’s commissioning process will ramp up over the course of the year, as more antenna arrays are installed and brought online. With each additional station, the sensitivity and resolution of the telescope will increase. This growth will also bring greater technical challenges in handling the growing complexity and data rates.

By the end of 2025, SKA-Low is expected to have 16 working stations. The increased volume of output data at this stage will be the next major test for the telescope’s software systems.

By the end of 2026, the array is planned to expand to 68 working stations at which point it will be the the most sensitive low-frequency radio telescope on Earth.

This phase will be the next big test of the end-to-end telescope system. When we get to this stage, the same field you see in the image above will be able to comprehensively map and detect up to 600,000 galaxies. I’m personally looking forward to helping bring it together.

Randall Wayth, SKA-Low Senior Commissioning Scientist and Adjunct Associate Professor, Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Deep observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an exceptionally large galaxy in the early universe. It’s a cosmic giant whose light has travelled over 12 billion years to reach us. We’ve dubbed it the Big Wheel, with our findings published today in Nature Astronomy.

This giant disk galaxy existed within the first two billion years after the Big Bang, meaning it formed when the universe was just 15% of its current age. It challenges what we know about how galaxies form.

What is a disk galaxy?

Picture a galaxy like our own Milky Way: a flat, rotating structure made up of stars, gas and dust, often surrounded by an extensive halo of unseen dark matter.

Disk galaxies typically have clear spiral arms extending outward from a dense central region. Our Milky Way itself is a disk galaxy, characterised by beautiful spiral arms that wrap around its centre.

Studying disk galaxies, like the Milky Way and the newly discovered Big Wheel, helps us uncover how galaxies form, grow and evolve across billions of years.

These studies are especially significant, as understanding galaxies similar to our own can provide deeper insights into the cosmic history of our galactic home.

A giant surprise

We previously thought galaxy disks form gradually over a long period: either through gas smoothly flowing into galaxies from surrounding space, or by merging with smaller galaxies.

Usually, rapid mergers between galaxies would disrupt the delicate spiral structures, turning them into more chaotic shapes. However, the Big Wheel managed to quickly grow to a surprisingly large size without losing its distinctive spiral form. This challenges long-held ideas about the growth of giant galaxies.

Our detailed JWST observations show that the Big Wheel is comparable in size and rotational speed to the largest “super-spiral” galaxies in today’s universe. It is three times as big in size as comparable galaxies at that epoch and is one of the most massive galaxies observed in the early cosmos.

In fact, its rotation speed places it among galaxies at the high end of what’s called the Tully-Fisher relation, a well-known link between a galaxy’s stellar mass and how fast it spins.

Remarkably, even though it’s unusually large, the Big Wheel is actively growing at a rate similar to other galaxies at the same cosmic age.

Unusually crowded part of space

What makes this even more fascinating is the environment in which the Big Wheel formed.

It’s located in an unusually crowded region of space, where galaxies are packed closely together, ten times denser than typical areas of the universe. This dense environment likely provided ideal conditions for the galaxy to grow quickly. It probably experienced mergers that were gentle enough to let the galaxy maintain its spiral disk shape.

Additionally, the gas flowing into the galaxy must have aligned well with its rotation, allowing the disk to grow quickly without being disrupted. So, a perfect combination.

A fortunate finding

Discovering a galaxy like the Big Wheel was incredibly unlikely. We had less than a 2% chance to find this in our survey, according to current galaxy formation models.

So, our finding was fortunate, probably because we observed it within an exceptionally dense region, quite different from typical cosmic environments.

Besides its mysterious formation, the ultimate fate of the Big Wheel is another intriguing question. Given the dense environment, future mergers might significantly alter its structure, potentially transforming it into a galaxy comparable in mass to the largest ones observed in nearby clusters, such as Virgo.

The Big Wheel’s discovery has revealed yet another mystery of the early universe, showing that our current models of galaxy evolution still need refinement.

With more observations and discoveries of massive, early galaxies like the Big Wheel, astronomers will be able to unlock more secrets about how the universe built the structures we see today.

Themiya Nanayakkara, Lead Astronomer at the James Webb Australian Data Centre, Swinburne University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Late last week, corporate watchdog the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) issued a warning to lenders that provide high-fee small-amount loans – known as payday lenders – that they may be breaching consumer-lending laws.

Trying to provide effective protections to borrowers of these small loans is fiendishly difficult. People in financial hardship turn to payday loans, even though they are expensive. Lenders can charge high fees for such loans but may change products to avoid regulation.

If access to payday loans dries up, borrowers in need are likely to turn to other products. And so the cycle begins again.

The regulator’s report might be a prompt to government to think about other strategies.

What is payday lending and why is it a concern?

Payday lending is the name commonly given to loans of small amounts (under A$2,000) for short periods of time (16 days to one year) that promise quick credit checks and don’t require collateral.

They are called payday loans because the original idea was borrowers would pay them back when they got their next pay cheque. But often that is not how it works, and borrowers struggle to repay.

ASIC said the total value of small and medium loans provided to consumers in 2023–24 was $1.3 billion. An earlier study by Consumer Action Law Centre found 4.7 million individual payday loans were written over three years to July 2019.

Why do borrowers use (expensive) payday loans?

Small, short-term loans like payday loans have been around for a long time – and in part, they respond to a reality that, for many people, their income is not sufficient to give them buffers.

Payday loans can be used by borrowers who don’t have savings or credit cards to pay for one-off unexpected bills – a broken fridge, an emergency medical appointment or even utilities bills. But they can also be used to meet daily living expenses.

There are limited other practical options – for some types of bills, there are hardship schemes, but these are not always well-known. For one-off expenses, there are low and no-interest loan schemes but they can be quite restrictive. Free financial counselling may also help, but knowledge and access can be an issue.

Why were new laws dealing with payday loans introduced?

Payday lenders have typically charged very high fees. In 2013, concerns about the high cost of payday loans led to specific provisions to limit the fees that could be charged.

Nonetheless, regulators and consumer advocates remain concerned these kinds of loans lock borrowers into debt spirals because they keep accumulating and that lenders manage to avoid many of the restrictions.

Further reforms in 2022 introduced a presumption a loan is unsuitable if the borrower has already taken out two payday loans in the preceding 90 days. The reforms also prohibit payday lenders from offering loans where the repayments would exceed a prescribed proportion of a borrower’s income.

What did ASIC say?

ASIC said it found a trend of payday lenders moving borrowers who previously might have borrowed relatively small amounts ($700 to $2,000) to medium-sized loans ($2,000 to $5,000), which are not subject to the same consumer protections.

The regulator said small loan credit contracts fell from 80% of loans in the December quarter of 2022 to less than 60% of loans by the August 2023 quarter.

It said it was concerned by this approach and reminded lenders they were still subject to the reasonable lending regime. This effectively means not lending amounts that would be unsuitable for borrowers.

Why are payday lenders moving consumers to larger loans?

It’s a concern that lenders change products to avoid restrictive rules. But it is not altogether surprising.

One response from increasing restrictions on one form of credit might be that lenders decide to focus on other, less restricted, products like medium-sized loans – this is what ASIC seems to have found.

This is problematic if those larger loans are not meeting consumers’ needs and objectives (for instance, if they only needed a smaller amount), or complying with the loan would cause substantial hardship. It’s important to remind lenders that the responsible lending obligations apply to medium size loans, and for ASIC to take enforcement action where appropriate.

What might be a better approach?

The ASIC report highlights the increasing complexity of the National Consumer Credit Act regime – with the standard obligations complemented by specific and unique rules for a range of credit products. These include small amount credit, standard home loans, credit cards, reverse mortgages, and Buy Now Pay Later.

It’s worth thinking about whether a better strategy might be to go back to a simpler approach, where one set of rules applied to all consumer credit products. Regulatory exceptions and qualifications are minimised.

If access to payday loans becomes more restrictive, borrowers are likely to turn to other products. This means ASIC should also be looking at other products that are used to provide short-term small loans. These are likely to include buy now pay later schemes and pawn broking.

Buy now pay later products are subject to their own regulations, including responsible lending obligations. But pawn brokers aren’t covered by the Consumer Credit laws and are subject to little regulatory scrutiny. This is also something that should change.

We also need to consider whether there are financial inclusion options not dependent on lenders out to make a profit from borrowers struggling with the cost of living.

Jeannie Marie Paterson, Professor of Law (consumer protections and credit law), The University of Melbourne and Nicola Howell, Senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.