Comments on: Australian Government to Introduce De-Facto ID Cards

By: chris

chris — Fri, 05 May 2006 11:26:10 +0000

The Australian IT Section has more on this, saying:

INTELLIGENCE agencies and police will be given access to a vast database of "biometric" photographs of Australians to be created for the new health and welfare smart card to fight terrorism and more general crime.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Thu, 04 May 2006 13:37:13 +0000

For similar reasons to Swagy, I too abhor the ID cards, and the methods in which governments could subvert this. In Britain, my government have used national security as the reason for imposing ID cards. There has also been some sort of an auction, as to whether the card should be £30 or £500.

If ID cards were ever launched, no one should ever be forced to pay for the privilege of being themselves.

By: chris

chris — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:07:36 +0000

The Register has a nice writeup too, I liked this quote..

Again, like Britain's card, it will be biometric, but not too biometric at first. As in Britain, the limited biometrics are presented as a sop to borderline civil libertarians. Don't worry, says Howard, the card's chip will only hold your digital photograph, not your fingerprints. They fail to mention how unreliable biometric technology is. They couldn't get anything more sophisticated working in the jittery timescale they want to do it all in.

By: Swagy

Swagy — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:32:23 +0000

For the record I think it is a bad idea, I for one do not trust any government enough to responsibly use the power that a national id system would give them.

By: chris

chris — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 00:15:50 +0000

I suspect Howard is rich enough to not need to claim Medicare..

By: Rich Boakes

Rich Boakes — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 15:48:39 +0000

I'm sure the real Prime Minister Howard will carry his everywhere. A suggestion: whenever the real Prime Minister Howard speaks publicly, observers and news reporters should ask to see his card identity card in order that he prove that he is the real Prime Minister Howard and not an imposter. If this happens, it won't take long before the real Prime Minister Howard realizes that than an ID card is inconvenient, irrelevant and does nothing to increase security or simplify the management of citizen data.