Slashdot Mirror
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."
If you've ever seen the famous German film M (which is made by Fritz Lang--the same director of Metropolis fame), you would recall the scenes in which people are asked for their papers and arrested if they don't have them or they are suspected to be fake. This is in an attempt to crack down on a child molester/murderer.
Why do I pick M and not some modern day movie that reflects this? Because as I watched M, I realized that Fritz Lang was probably commenting on the futility of that system of law enforcement although his audience probably watched it with a "that's just the way it works" attitude. How profound it was to see an act of injustice only to realize that when and where this movie was made it was not at all out of the norm.
I was born in 1982 so I'm sure I don't know the half of how 'papers' work but I do know that I have a social security card, two birth certificates (state and county) and a driver's license. Are these my papers? Maybe they could be construed as such but I highly doubt I would be arrested should I lack any of them. You will, of course, argue with me and tell me I would be considered an illegal alien without the birth certificates. I know this is true most places and I do fear for my country, the United States of America.
The article was very concerned with how much this would cost versus save the Australian government. The article was also very concerned about whether this would crack down on identity theft or make it easier to steal an identity. What I'm concerned about is what happens when you're a suspect of a crime that happened in proximity to you and you don't have your ID card? I'm also very concerned to see whether or not the Aboriginal peoples of Australia will be forced to carry this card.
Are the laws surrounding this card being mandated such that it would be very easy for law enforcement to abuse it? Will this give them an excuse to arrest whom ever they so choose? Identification is easily abused by both the identifiers and those being identified.
My work here is dung.
Oh - and the summary headline "Australians to Get Compulsory Photo ID Smartcard" seems to be incorrect. Quoting the linked article: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.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
...implant it on the back of my hand? I don't want to have to remember to take it everywhere!
This card is not a full-blown id chip implant, but it is the first step.
I would be weary of the tracking of these cards.
You start people out on a mandatory ID card, then move to mandatory carrying of the card at all times, then you move to tracking the cards remotely, and then your actions/movements are no longer 'free.'
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
From 2010 people will not be able to receive government health and welfare payments without a card.
That's what they say now. But how long until people who decide they don't want gov't health and welfare benefits are singled out?
"You don't have a national ID card? Why not?"
"I don't want or need gov't health or welfare benefits."
"Why? Do you have something to hide? Guards!"
I know it's a kind of slippery slope argument. But seriously, has there ever been a government in this world that didn't screw up practically everything?
This is what happens when you willingly give up your assault weapons!
Well then implant it in my wang. If I loose that, I don't want them to stop me dying.
This is a seriously rediculous statement. I understand the need for privacy, however I don't see how this is any more invasive than requiring a drivers license or a state ID or a passport to get certain benefits as well.
There is good reason for requiring identification for certain benefits to ensure that people don't abuse the system. As of right now, the USA doesn't have a "national ID card", however a drivers license is close enough. Police from any state can take your license and request all of your information.
This system not only simplifies that process, but allows you OPTIONALLY to put in more health and contact information to benefit you if you run into problems.
Passports, State ID Cards, Licenses, are all essentially the same thing. What the hell is the problem?
What happens when a wallet gets stolen? How many hoops do you have to jump through to prove that you are who you say you are, so that you can get a new card? If I lose my credit card, I make a phone call and they cancel it and send me a new one - surely it wouldn't be that easy with some form of national identification.
And like the previous poster stated - how much longer before this really does turn into compulsory chipping (except in Wisconsin)? While I am not afraid of the government, and have nothing to hide, I'm not exactly enamoured by the idea of being required to have some form of absolute ID on me (or in me) at all times.
Where does this all end? Gattica had the nifty system of checking DNA for everything...will the Police officer someday just ask for a strand of hair? I like my bodily fluids, and I don't want to give them away, especially not for something as mundane as identification...it would be okay to give them to the proverbial "female".
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
I've debated other Libertarians on this issue, and the main point they can not refute is, "So what?"
In nearly all 50 of these United States, you are required to carry some form of ID, usually a driver's license. Once you cross state lines, your ID is no longer familiar to those who may want to look at it (airport ticket counter, liquor store cashier, hotel clerk, police officer, EMT) and thus becomes easier to forge. A national ID instead of 50 differnt state ID's could help prevent this sort of thing and make absolutely no difference people's lives, as we are all required to carry a state ID already.
I've carried a state ID for over 20 years, and I've never had anyone ask to see my papers.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Excellent. After living in Australia for 6 years I've moved back to NZ. Whilst we do occasionally do ridiculous things wrt environmental issues, our general method of governance is much much `pre-9-11' (as people say ^_^). Maybe that's because we're an outdated backwater; but whatever the reason, at least we avoid lunacy like this. In case anybody doesn't know by now, we have also effectively banned any US ship from entering out waters (although how we do that is not something I agree with; we are `nuclear free' which, although prevents any US ship from visiting, also means we are nuclear free).
NZ is sort of like Amiga OS (or perhaps I should say *BSD? ^_~)... secure and free mostly by obfuscation and isolation =^_^=.
The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers
"Mr. President! We must not allow a privacy-shaft gap!"
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
As has been repeatedly pointed out about the UK government's (well, a handful of senior members') insistence on introducing a 'voluntary' ID card, it's going to be a windfall for IT consultants if the debacle of the NHS patient database project is anything to go by. I'm polishing my golden wheelbarrow as I type. Quite fancy six months or so in Oz too.
You tell me I'm over-concerned and I tell you I'm over-cautious. What happens when it becomes public mentality to think ill of someone who is "caught in public without their ID card"? I am concerned about the rights of the people and what this ID card is being sold to them as versus what it really is. Go ahead and call me foolish or "over the top" but any rights lost are rights rarely won back.
My work here is dung.
No.
If you want the government to pay for your health care, you need the card. Right now, you need your Medicare card anyway. So what's the difference?
The problem with these smartcards, RFID, etc. is actually quite simple:
I can't choose not to provide a piece of info that's on it.
If they had a way for me to control which information from them I want to reveal, there would be much less trouble, I'm sure. Then I could have a single ID card with all my financial, medical, etc. info on it, but you only get whatever I explicitly give you.
And no, implementing that in the clients, say programming the doc's computer so it only reads the medical data, is not good enough.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
My work here is dung.
This is nothing new at all. Back in 1990 my debate team had a rebuttle argument called "meat." It went like this.
1. Your project creates more wealth.
2. Wealthy people eat more beef.
3. The rain forests are cut down for more pasture to raise more cows.
4. The reduction in rainforests causes global warming.
5. Global warming causes famine.
6. Famine causes nuclear war.
7. Henceforth your plan (help the homeless, old people, whatever) causes nuclear war.
Nobody actually won any debate using it, but a foolish opponent might waste time on it.
Maybe it's because there's no better way to file this, but this seems to be less "Your Rights Online" and more "Your Rights in the Real World." Just an observation.
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
This PM promised that there would never be a GST, so saying it's not an ID card does not suprise anyone in Oz. Just because he doesn't call it an ID card, doesn't mean that it doesn't function like one. An Election is due in a year so let the voters decide.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
On the one hand, it does seem like a convenient way to hold all our information in regards to medicare, concession cards etc.
On the other, I feel uneasy about having so much personal information about myself stored on one card. I mean no doubt, someone will find a way to gain access to this information if they steal someones card, and once they have, identity theft is bound to occur. Computer chips aren't foolproof. There's bound to be at least one person out there that will be able to break through any barriers that the government try to implement for "security".
It also makes me wonder, if someone doesn't have an ID card yet, and they need welfare payments urgently, what happens? Eg. Holly Housewife, 34, doesn't work, 3 kids, husband is killed in car accident. No life insurance. She needs pension, but doesn't have ID card. How long will she have to wait before getting benefits? Will she have to wait through the process of getting an ID card, and then the process of being approved for payments, or will the government be nice enough to start payments straight away, because it's a desperate situation?
And my guess is, that as time goes on, more information may have to be added to the card, making it more and more like a Bug Brother type of scenario. I mean, it already has enough information on there for it to be that. Plus they say, you won't have to carry it on you all the time. But honestly, nearly everyone carries their medicare and concession cards on them all the time, "just in case". Seeing as this new SmartCard will be replacing those, wouldn't it be stupid to not be carrying it anyway?
Bruce Schneier wrote an op-ed a couple years back on why a national ID doesn't offer any more security. Interesting reading, to say the least: http://www.schneier.com/essay-034.html
As Slashdotters, you'll all be aware that one of the fundamental requirements of a secure transaction is to be able to validate someone is who they say they are. How can you do that without some kind of ID card? Get this - in the UK if you go to open a bank account, they ask you for a gas bill! You can phone up your gas company, ask them to add any name you want to the bill, and then take the resulting bill into a bank and use it as proof of address! Or if you want to claim social security benefits, you just need to take in your birth certificate. But the ink washes off old birth certificates, I kid you not. And yet many people in the UK have an almost rabid passion about their right not to have an official means to identify themselves. Sorry, but I just don't get it.
I live in Belgium and I have with me my identity card and my "SIS" card. The first has been asked by me once when police where looking for somebody. It seemed they were looking for somebody who looked like me.
Instead of taking me to the station and all the tests, they just chaecked my papers and all was well.
The other I use if I am at a docter, or buy prescribed medicene. It is there so I get money back. Both are now with a chip set. Want to read what is on them? http://www.belgium.be/zip/eid_datacapture_fr.html Indeed, source code is aailable.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Maybe we should refer to ourselves as "land of the long smug cloud". At least you never mentioned "ahead of the curve...". Im starting to wish we had a military, if george clooney ever gets close to NZ we might have to shoot him down to avert a catastrophy.
why not just create a Certificate Authority for the Federal Government? Then mandate that all driver's licenses and passports have a smart chip with a certificate signed by the government and your own personal public key, also signed by the government. A separate card could be issued with your private key on it. As a backup, encode the certificate for the ID card in a barcode on the back, so your ID can be verified even if the chip fails.
If you want to get rid of the separate card for the private key, come up with an algorithm for hashing other biometric data to make a private key: retinal scan and/or thumbprint.
If properly implemented, there would be two virtues to this system. The first is, after the initial check by the issuer that the issuee is who they say they are, no central database query is need to authenticate the ID. Each ID reader just needs a copy of the government's public key. After almost 10 years of Web Browser PKI experience, this system should be well-understood. The second virtue is, if every citizen has a public and private key pair, then check and credit card fraud could be eliminated. Those systems currently rely on insecure methods like written signatures, very short pins, or codes on the back of the physical cards. It would also be possible to easily encrypt e-mail, keep phone calls private, and transmit legally binding electronic documents.
Bruce Schneier points out that any ID card system will be flawed from the start because there is a human element in issuing and checking ID's. Biometrics and PKI would help, but perhaps not enough. At the very least, my proposal wouldn't be a worse ID system then we currently have, and actually provides two possible benefits we didn't have before. On the other hand, governments don't like strong encryption in the hands of citizens, so we would have to watch for backdoors in the system. There may also be a concern with the fact that your public key can now tie you to your various activities. Of course, this is pretty much the case now. Though, there are many virtues to a world where PKI is widely used.
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In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
"And yes, in some european countries it is mandatory to have your ID card with you when you leave the house. I don't think you'll be arrested for not having it, at least I've never heard of that happening after WW2."
I'm no geography whiz, but Colorado is not in Europe, as far as I know.
Thanks for the completely unrealted story though. It was a good read, but you should have paid attention to the part where THEY GAVE HER A TICKET. She wasn't arrested.
So apart from being an entirely different continent, and the lady not being arrested, your point is a decent one.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
It depends on how they're going to be used. Like most things, they could be used for good or evil. It seems like the Australian one might end up being harmless, since it doesn't really contain any more information than our drivers licenses currently do. It is a waste of money, though, since we already have the drivers licenses, and special identity cards for people who do not drive.
The other thing to keep in mind with all of these cards is that if they're convenient for you, they're probably also convenient for identity thieves. You don't sound like you've ever become a victim of identity fraud, but it is something to keep in mind. You never know when you're going to lose your wallet or forget your "everything card"...
I would think that the best thing to do, in terms of security, would be spreading identity across multiple cards so that no card is all-powerful. It's a bit like not using the same password for every website.
if you dont think that kind of thing goes on here in the USA, read this story about a women who was put in jail because she did not show her "papers" on a public bus while not breaking any laws... http://www.papersplease.org/davis/index1.html
Don't discount how polarizing this will be for many Americans. The groudswell of resistance will cause the idea to fail politically before it can be implemented.
I used to manage a company in the mid-South. When we tried to eliminate physical paychecks and go to mandatory direct deposit, there was a near-strike among the workforce. Main argument was biblical - "linking me with all those numbers is the first step toward being marked with the sign of the beast."
Yeah they forgot that even with paper checks the company reported pay data to the IRS. But the resistance was emotional, visceral, and strong.
This is a very specific plan to require people who are receiving government benefits to be able to demonstrate that they are who they claim to be. Don't like it? Don't participate. If you want the benefits, you have to play by the rules.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
however, the difference is that contrary to the title of this topic suggests, the Australian so-called smartcard is not compulsory. It is (or will be) required to claim welfare benefits, which, unless they include simple medicare rebates, won't affect me one way or the other.
You sound like the UK Government - they too have been claiming the ID card scheme will initially be voluntary, because you can choose to give up your passport instead.
This reasoning is absurd - if you are penalised for not having one, then it is not voluntary in any meaningful sense of the word. By that logic, anything is voluntary, because you can always choose to go to prison instead! The only difference here is that the penalty (not having benefits, not having a passport) is something some people may be able to do without, and hence it won't affect them.
I'm an Australian. Most people posting comments above are not (a couple are). There are many confused or simply wrong statements being made. This new National ID card is the least intrusive attempt at one yet (there have been 2 previous attempts over the last 10 years).
So here are some answers to questions from above:
From 2010 people will not be able to receive government health and welfare payments without a card.
This statement, although true, is misleading. A MediCare card is required right now to receive gov health benefits. Welfare payments can only be paid to a person who can prove their identity and legal status. ie. birth-certificate required and "proof of age" card. This "National ID card" is nothing more than a unification of a system that has been in place for 20 years.
Perhaps the Prime Minister, John Howard is unaware that the London Bombers were all British citizens...
John Howard is a shifty little monarch who has a double-sided tongue. Before him, we had the greatest economist that ever lived, but because he was a social retard, people voted him out. Little Johnny is, sadly, now the best we've got.
Too bad you gave up your weapons
I can walk into a gun club right now (ok, when the shops are open) and order all sorts of guns and ammunition. I have to have a pretty good reason to take a gun out of a registered club though (eg. if I'm a farmer, a licensed shooter etc.). Psychopaths can't buy guns. Anybody with criminal (not property-related) felony-level convictions can't buy guns (DUI etc doesn't count). This is a good thing. We don't like small civil wars breaking out, like they do in the U.S. Besides, what good is a gun? It won't save me from having to pay taxes.
I have a Drivers License.
I have a MediCare card.
I have a Credit-Card whose every transaction over $100 gets reported to the Federal Government.
My Government does not ask me to be a certain religion. It does not ask me where my parents are from, or who I choose to call friends. It does not dictate how (or even if) I should school my children. It does not question my sexual orientation, nor judge me on it. Aside from preserving cultural heritage, it is not interested in the colour of my skin.
I am dependant on my Government continuuing to identify me as an Autralian Citizen whenever I may stand in need of help. I am 29 and I grew up with all these things. I have no problem with the National ID Card. I believe I am more free than most.
I believe I am more free than most, but more importantly; I am happy.
Not a big student of history, are you? Mandatory government ID is one link in a chain (a big one), and so is disarmament of the populace. The ability to own guns is an index of freedom, just like the ability to go where you please or associate with whomever you want.
The point is, it's all a gradual progression towards a totalitarian government if left unchecked. Each step doesn't seem like a big deal, and a nanny state provides enough benefits that citizens are lulled into thinking it's a good tradeoff. But in the end you get Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc. running the show, and all of a sudden the fact that every citizen is in a big database doesn't seem so fantastic, but by then it's too late.
The funny thing is, can you imagine if passports were a new idea?
They are a relatively new idea, and people just have a short attention span. They were only introduced in WWI (to the horror of just about everyone) promises were made to eliminate the documents after the war (which weren't kept) and it wasn't until WW2 that you really needed one to travel worldwide. (Quite a lot of the immigrants to Ellis Island had not a piece of paper on em.)
I cite the passport, and the ensuing cult of documentation to travel, as the biggest loss of liberty and freedom in the 20th century. Our acceptance/resignation of the idea that you need documentation and permission to cross borders is shameful.
I may add though that the original justification for passports during WWI was to "prevent espionage." Apparently spies couldn't get valid documents. Having done quite a lot of research into photo ID cards, the justifications for them usually range from stupid to assinine--and today we would be much more sophisticated (thanks to security knowledgeable audiences like Slashdot) to weed out the dumb arguments.
Or Driving Licenses: "New Compulsory Photo ID required just to operate vehicles!"
Photo driver's licenses are also fairly new and weren't as uncontroversial as you suggest. Most Americans didn't have one until the early 1980s. The justification for the photo license was also flimsy (the Ohio BMV, in 1974 said it was for "better identification" though police in Ohio didn't feel it was necessary.)
Well into the late 1970s there were a variety of attempts to make the photo optional on the Ohio license or to eliminate it completely. There was a pretty good amount of unhappiness about it. Several states maintained photo optional licensing until after 9/11 (like Vermont, Tennessee and New Jersey, though only Tennessee retains it today for the elderly.)
Like passports, attempts to introduce photo ID cards today would be met with much more sophisticated arguments against, particularly because the justification for them was so lackluster to begin with.
I hypothesize, based on factual and anecdotal information, that the creation of the photo driver's license coincides with the push by Polaroid of its instant color photo technology, which was too expensive for most Americans, but which they could sell successfully to state DMVs for ID card issuance. (An ex Polaroid employee, who founded a group against National ID cards, told me that Polaroid's color instant photo process, was given a special national security exemption, and its patent lasted twice as long as normal patents do.)