Australians to Get Compulsory Photo ID Smartcard

syousef writes "The Sydney morning herald reports that a new national ID card will be issued in Australia."From 2010 people will not be able to receive government health and welfare payments without a card. People may choose to have other information stored on the card, such as health and emergency contact details which, for example, ambulance officers could use.". Your papers please."

Comments

Dumb.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

I'm not particularly opposed to ID cards (They've been compulsory for sometime where I am in Europe - with no loss to my freedom that I can discern). However, statements such as:

The Prime Minister, John Howard, said the Government had considered a national identity card after last year's London bombings but in the end it "was not predisposed to adopt a national ID card".

Are just plain stupid. Perhaps the Prime Minister, John Howard is unaware that the London Bombers were all British citizens and would have been eligible for identity cards had Britain been using them. More likely however he is a typical Western fear mongering politician.

Oh - and the summary headline "Australians to Get Compulsory Photo ID Smartcard" seems to be incorrect. Quoting the linked article:

From 2010 people will not be able to receive government health and welfare payments without a card.

My understanding is that Australia does have a reasonable health & welfare system, so thats a big carrot (stick?) to wave. But it's still not compulsory.

Re:Fritz Lang's M

[Bromskloss]

the famous German film M

The film (original version from 1931) can be downloaded from our friends at archive.org.

So put the lights out...
M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Moerder

Re:The Letter of the Law?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm interested in what the law of Australia states. Would it be possible for someone to be arrested simply because they don't have their ID card?

Maybe if you had read the linked article, instead of frantically going for an apparently well thought out first post, you'd have read that it is NOT compulsory to carry the ID card in question at all times. In other words, you'll carry it when you expect you'll need it. I always carry my Medicare card and I will probably also always carry this ID card.

I am not worried about what the Australian government or police will do with this opportunity. I am however worried about the design and implementation of the technology. Regardless of whether the government develops the card and support system in-house or with contractors, they have a tendancy to fuck things like this up, with beurocratic bullshit getting in the way of proper design and implementation. Which I suppose is mostly typical of governments around the World.

I would really like to get my hands on one with some known details on the card to check it for myself. Hopefully the format of the data stored on the cards will be version numbered to allow automatic updates when needed at trusted points of use (hospitals, post offices, etc), so that the cards details can be updated to reflect critical changes in the back-end systems.