Australia Scraps National ID Plan

IPU = Imaginary Property Unicorn writes "The proposed Australian 'Access Card', a universal ID that would be required for any Australian wishing to use Medicare, Centrelink, the Child Support Agency, or Veterans' Affairs, has been scrapped by the incoming Rudd Labor Government. The card would have contained an RFID tag with the person's name, date of birth, gender, address, signature, card number, card expiration date, and Medicare number, but there were also provisions to add more personal data later on. It seems that Rudd Labor is not eager to copy the American REAL ID Act."

Comments

Good riddance.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always did prefer anonymity.

Re:Good riddance.

[boer]

Nice joke and with a kernel of truth. This is why I have never understood the anti-id zealots: how does it make you happier about your society to know people can exploit the system and live their lives under false identities? Unless of course you are one of these people?

How does having better standardised methods of identification advance identity theft? On the contrary!

And if your government likes to spy their own people, how does stopping an id program prevent that? It is not like it is a prerequisite. Please refer to history books for more information on oppression.

Re:Good riddance.

[Jarik_Tentsu]

Probably scrapped so Rudd can enjoy his late night outs anonymously.

~Jarik

Re:Good riddance.

[Trailwalker]

The real name for a national ID card is "internal passport." It will be used to control movement of individuals from one part of the country to another and to prevent undesirables from entering designated areas. Really handy for controlling voter demographics and keeping protesters away from events. Papieren Bitte!

Re:Good riddance.

[kestasjk]

For all non-Australians: At the moment here in Australia has a points system, where you need to provide a certain number of points of identification depending on importance. So you can get, say, 40 points from a passport, 40 points from a birth/citizenship certificate, 20 points from a drivers license, etc, and you need to provide 100 points to apply for a credit card, 50 points to get a Medicare refund, etc.

You need to identify yourself when you get Medicare refunds or pick up licenses, and this verification thing means that when you want to do this you need to carry around a bag of important documents to identify yourself. You don't even want to think about what would happen if you lost the bag with all your most important documents, you just better hold on fucking tight.

An ID card system would basically just clean this mess up. We live in the age of the digital database, we can centralize our data, it's more efficient for everyone, it's just common sense.

And I just don't see how this gives the government extra powers to spy on you. Even if you enter into the make believe world of Enemy of the State where the government will change your stuff around on a whim to destroy your life it's still hard to see how having a centralized ID system would help them. "They" can already track you with video cameras and credit card transaction lists. Why do people have a problem with this but no problem with having an IMEI number on their mobile phone?

This might make it easier for the government to stop you being able to identify yourself. So looking at a worst-case Enemy of the State scenario; they cancel your credit cards, steal your briefcase, post incriminating pictures of you and get you fired and kicked out of your home, frame you for murder, put bugs all over your body and wire tap your phone, hunt you down and force you into hiding, but now they can also stop you getting Medicare refunds if you didn't bring your passport with you!

I think this is just another of Rudd's cowardly policies of appeasing the loud minority of people who oppose this (the Tin-foil-hat lobby), rather than doing what's right.

Re:Good riddance.

[name*censored*]

You idiot, Jews represent a tiny tiny minority in Australia - only about 120,000. That's as ludicrous as saying that the Buddhists are secretly in charge of the USA. Besides, most people of the Jewish faith are Caucasian and from first or second world countries, not "hate filled third worlders". How on earth do you manage to remember to breathe in and out 24 hours a day, you mouth breathing simian?

Re:Good riddance.

[thegrassyknowl]

You don't even want to think about what would happen if you lost the bag with all your most important documents, you just better hold on fucking tight.

I agree that this mess of documents is messy, but once you have a Medicare card you don't need to carry around all that ID. Your driver's license and Medicare card should be enough for almost any medical care you need.

You generally carry enough ID around in your wallet/purse on a daily basis anyway. Usually you know when you're going to open a bank account or replace your Medicare card, etc.

And I just don't see how this gives the government extra powers to spy on you.

Centralising data the way the government wanted to gives them much more power to spy on you. Currently your medical records are contained with your GP. Medicare just gets the type of consult rather than a complete detailed record. As I understand it the new scheme was trying to store the full record on a centralised computer. That's great if you're ever in an accident and can't pass on details of your regular GP(s) but other than that people can simply pass on the details of their previous care providers and the new one can get access to the medical record.

The Child support thing always shits me. They use your Australian tax file number to identify you. They print it in letters to you and your ex and pass it around to anyone who asks for information from them like it's your fucking name. Your TFN is kind of like your passport for the tax office. It's not the holy grail, but if someone who wants to fuck you up has it they can use it to access the tax office and pretend to be you or falsify tax documents to really mess you up. I can't see how a national ID card will help there. What really shits me is that a lot of this national ID card crap is to further strengthen the (already far too extensive) powers that the CSA has (for example, they can already ignore a court order on the grounds "we don't feel that it's beneficial to...").

Going to a national ID card will allow the government to better and easier centralise their tracking and profiling of you. Currently it's a little harder because they have to go digging around different sources to find it. I'd prefer to keep them digging for it because then they need to have a reason rather than profiling everyone automatically.

Re:Good riddance.

[nomorecwrd]

Maybe it'a a matter of country size, but here in Chile we implemented a national ID number decades ago, ONE number and one ID card for almost everything, my ID number is the same as my passport, same as my driver's licence, same as my Medicare, same as my social security, etc. Even private companies, like banks, insurance, telephone, cable, etc. identify you with this number. Easy! and very convenient. The number is given to the new born when registred. Our IRS (SII) tracks your taxes with this number. Companies are assigned with an ID also (much higher number than individuals). Even foreigners can ask for an ID number. (needed if you want to work in here) Again, it's a very convenient system! I don't know how you guys can keep a whole big country running without this. Just my two cents.

Re:Good riddance.

[blincoln]

"They" can already track you with video cameras and credit card transaction lists. Why do people have a problem with this but no problem with having an IMEI number on their mobile phone?

You can choose to not use mobile phones or credit cards, and wear a hat and sunglasses or some other quasi-disguise around video cameras. You effectively cannot choose to not have a national ID card of the kind that authoritarians campaign for.

Re:Good riddance.

[ta bu shi da yu]

We do fine. The fact that we are a big country means nothing, we have a low population.

Re:Good riddance.

[rtb61]

More importantly it allows for the creation of non-persons, those that have no rights due to their consistent willingness to question and challenge authority.

Not that I am against a 'voluntary' universal ID system. One that is legally protected from unauthorised access, one that you only voluntarily obtain and one that you only voluntarily show and one where there are severe criminal penalties for attempting to over ride those 'voluntary' principles.

A citizen should also be notified when ever anybody access data stored by the government about a citizen that is associated with the universal ID, detailing who accessed that data, from which department or organisation they are from and why they accessed that data.

In that case it is an ID and not an internal passport. Of course the simple route is to drop the whole idea along with other obscene ideas like human implanted RFID chips or turning a person into a human ID via biometric scanning.

Re:Good riddance.

[anthonys_junk]

Not being one of those people that exploit the system still doesn't make me want to have my information stored in a centralised nationwide system built by the cheapest contractor and overseen by public servants.

A 'better' method of standardised identity verification? How exactly is this 'better'? Show me your proof.

All this provides is a far more attractive target to a fuckwad script-kiddie than having the data decentralised.

Please refer to a clue for more information on what might be wrong with your theory.

Ah, the irony

[ta bu shi da yu]

I distinctly remember that John Howard actively campaigned against the National ID Card with Bob Hawke was in power. Then he was for it. Bloody hypocrite, I'm so glad he's gone.

Re:Ah, the irony

[RedneckJack]

Sounds like our Republican Party (USA). Democrats like Jimmy Carter wanted it, Republicans said no. Fast forward to 2004/2005, assholes like Sensenbrenner insisted and were hell bent on getting it and now were stuck with it. Democrats were against it when it was pushed. Now they control Congress, why haven't they pushed for its dismantlement ? Sensenbrenner also loves this damn Driver License Agreement where our driving databases will not only be shared within the USA but alsi with foreign countries like corrupt Mexico.

Thanks to fuckheads like Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, we have Patriot Act, Real ID Act and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). I got a speeding ticket in Missouri thanks to a DHS police officer driving on the highway. As soon as Hilliary gets the White House, we will have a 55 mph speed limit and have something like a nationl highway patrol run by DHS who will make sure we don't dare drive 56 mph.

Good.

[fotbr]

A request for the rest of the world:

DO NOT COPY US. It will take years to undo the damage this administration has done to the US, and most of the damage will likely never be completely undone. Point and mock if you must, but PLEASE learn from our mistakes.

Re:Good.

[MichaelSmith]

It wasn't really an ID card anyway. Most people who access Government services (usually some kind of welfare) need a card of some sort it identify themselves. For most Australians this means taking a Medicare card along to the doctor, and then to a Medicare office to get a rebate on the doctors fee.

For older people who access multiple services it would be better not to have to carry three of four cards around. There is nothing to stop the federal government from integrating their databases anyway. You don't need a common card for that.

Re:Good.

[fotbr]

My request still applies.

Re:Good.

[Nomen Publicus]

There are plenty of ways to provide identity to a pretty high level of confidence that do not require a huge centralised government database (which from recent evidence, will quickly leak all the data because governments seem to be clueless about data security.)

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not copy US ?

Fucking US is waaaaay behind the curve as far as the topic ( national Ids) is concerned.

Whatever Bush is coming up with is NOTHING compared to shit , say Germans have to put up with.

Re:Good.

[jcr]

Fill us in. What do the Germans have to put up with?

-jcr

Re:Good.

[Z00L00K]

It's actually about time for an internationally recognized ID standard, national ID:s are sooooo last century...

The reason behind this? - Yes, if you are trying to do something on an international basis some kind of nationally recognized ID is required for some transactions - and if you have an ID card for one country it won't work in another. It's a business issue more than a privacy issue.

The ID is also to prove that you actually are the person you claim that you are. If you want real privacy you can always hire someone else to do the job of registration or perform transactions in cash.

Some may say that passports are internationally recognized as ID:s but that's not really good for two reasons: 1. They are in a very inconvenient physical format. 2. They are easily forged.

As for identity theft - it's already a fact and no matter on which scale you do the identity data it is always a risk. It is even worse if it is on a state level than on a national or international level since the variations in the ID papers and registration data makes it harder to validate.

Re:Good.

[dbIII]

Australia actually copied the system that California used to determine power distribution and pricing despite everyone with a clue pointing out that it was a train wreck in progress. Show us your worst and we will copy it.

Re:Good.

[mjwx]

It's actually about time for an internationally recognized ID standard

We have one, its called a passport, its issued by your nation of origin or current citizenship and is recognised the world over as proof of identity.

You do have other forms of useful internationally recognised ID's such as International drivers licenses which are issued in your nation of residence and allow you to drive in nations which co-operate (Australian IDL's are recognised in most countries, I'm not sure about US IDL's as you chaps tend drive on the wrong side of the road).

personally I don't want one card to rule them all. There is security in having multiple forms of Identification for such purposes as a credit application taking out a small loan. I feel better about providing 100 points of Identification (at least three pieces of ID including one Photo ID) as I don't want someone who raided my mailbox (A bill is a form of Identification, at least in AU) racking up debt against my name.

Re:Good.

[ozmanjusri]

Australia actually copied the system that California used to determine power distribution and pricing

Do you have any references for that?

My experience with power generation and distribution is that it's a state role and varies widely depending where you live.

Re:Good.

[arivanov]

Actually not quite so.

There are plenty of ways to provide identity that do not require online access to a database. X509 at your service. Tried, tested, works, scales to the size of a population (most continental EU ID cards are actually smartcards wich hold an x509 cert). The only thing the ID reader needs to do is verify that the cert on the card is correct and show the information. This can be done by a sub-10$ mass produced device nowdays. It can also be completely standalone for less important apps and for the more important it needs to check for revoked certs via OCSP. It does not really need access to a centralised database. In fact it is better for an ID like this to hold your photo and your biometric because the verification is done through cryptographic integrity. If it holds them it does not need central database access in 99.99% of the cases.

Issuing the ID is a completely different ball game. There you need a database if you want to avoid identity fraud. The bigger, the nastier, the more comprehensive - the better. As a matter of fact such the databases already exist in most countries, they are reasonably well maintained and they work. These are the taxation system databases and all countries with successful ID systems use these as a primary source of information. A good example of database nations like this is any Scandinavian country and Bulgaria out of the ex-Soviet block.

There is a crucial difference here - the database is accessed only on issuing IDs and on updating/checking tax records. It is not accessed by every wannabie wanker in a small quango office who has declared himself the supreme owner of your identity. This is also the crucial difference between RealID, The UK ID, the Australian ID and working ID projects. These all aim to sneak a provision for tens of thousands of wankers to access your data and they do not try to build on the tax system data (which the tax system office rightfully denies them access to). This is also doomed to be abject failures long before they have even been started because they have to build a database for the whole country from scratch.

Re:Good.

[rucs_hack]

but PLEASE learn from our mistakes.

The thing with the US is no matter how bad it gets, your culture has within it a tendancy to say 'screw you' to anyone that's in power, and throw them out. Either that or make things so tough that people quit.

I've been surprised at the no-cons apparent ability to just take over and start the conversion to a police state (facism?) though. Why there hasn't been soime sort of mass revolt is beyond me. You're apparently just sitting back and letting them re-institute a pro rich/powerful people nation.

I have a lot of respect for Americans, but as a country your starting to look a bit, well, stupid. Quite aside from the political situation, its what, 80% of your population beleive the earth is less than 10,000 years old? This does not fill me with confidence. I was considering paying for my son to spend his univeristy years in the state, now I have a doubt.

How long is this going to go on do you think?

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is nothing to stop the federal government from integrating their databases anyway. You don't need a common card for that."

--Here in the US, there is something to stop the federal government from doing this, nominally at least. I think it's the 1986 "Computer Matching Records Act" or some such thing, an amendment to the 1973 Privacy Rights Act. It prohibits doing just that unless EACH AND EVERY PERSON in BOTH databases is notified IN WRITING of the intent to integrate the databases and given the chance to object.

That's "in writing", however... :-(

Re:Good.

[zsau]

The Kennet Liberal Government during the 1990s privatised power generation and distribution in Victoria. Originally the private distributors had a monopoly over different parts of the city or state, but now they all compete everywhere. (They use the same powerlines, you just pay different people.) I've never bothered myself to understand it, but I've heard as your PP said that it was modelled on the Californian system.

Re:Good.

[Heir Of The Mess]

It's called a credit card, and look how secure that has been. Yes I know a passport also counts, but I was also making a point about security.

Re:Good.

[ozmanjusri]

The Kennet Liberal Government during the 1990s privatised power generation and distribution in Victoria.

The Kennett Government privatised power in Victoria about the same time as California did, however they were the only state which went down that path. The Victorians were unable to learn from California because much of their privatisation predated California's.

There is a free market for electricity in the eastern states of Australia, but state owned power generators compete with private industry on a spot-price basis.

There has been plenty of discussion about energy production in Australia recently, particularly since NSW is considering privatising now. You can be sure California's experience has been an important topic.

Re:Good.

[TapeCutter]

In Australia the federal govt. cross-checks specific datatbases looking for inconsistentencies and fraud, it includes tax records (tax fraud), universal health insurance (provider fraud), and social security payments (dole bluggers and double dippers). The prime keys are your Tax File Number (TFN) and medicare id. This has been the situation since the introduction of the TFN legislation that was brought in to compensate for the first failed "Australia card" efforts back in the 80's.

The fact is that the Aussie TFN already has the same functionality (for the govt.) that Hawke's "Australia card" was proposing and it has had it for more than two decades. The reason that it is successfull and tolerated is just as you say, the "thousands of wankers" have been kept out (again).

Re:Good.

[svunt]

RFID makes it a bit more than a consolidation of cards, really.

Re:Good.

[fotbr]

If you visit a few of the better US universities -- especially those with good science & engineering programs -- you'll find little of the fundamentalist "science-is-bad-everything-we-need-to-know-is-in-this-book-right-here" mentality. Its not really as prevalent as the media makes it out to be. My experience has been that the West coast and the North East have less of that nonsense than other places, while the South and Midwest have more of it (the section referred to as the "Bible Belt" especially). Those are generalities, and there are exceptions, of course. Huntsville, AL has a decent engineering university, and is basically a city full of engineers. Rolla, MO is squarely in the middle of the bible belt, but because of the engineering university there is fairly sane (just don't go too far out of town). I'd suggest visiting a few schools with your son, deciding if you like the area, and explaining to your son that the Americans you'll find at engineering / science universities aren't *quite* as crazy as the media makes the typical American appear. Besides which, better than half of the students at most science & engineering universities are foreign students as well - predominantly from China, Japan, India, former soviet-bloc countries, and of course other countries as well, although not nearly as many.

There's been a mass revolt in public opinion of this administration, and many people voted for democrats for the first time in their lives last year to give us a democrat-controlled congress with the hopes that they'd move towards impeachment and would use congress' power to put the brakes on Bush's policies and power grabs. What they received in return was a democrat controlled congress that's happy to continue to act as a rubber-stamp while making a few speeches to give the appearance of resistance.

At this point, I think most people are a) too scared of the government* to do anything and b) holding out some hope that there's only a few months left and we'll have someone else in charge before too much more damage can be done.

*"Too scared of the government" doesn't mean an armed uprising, but merely people are beginning to watch what they say, lest they be deemed an "extremest" and marked as a "potential domestic terrorist", since there have been bills passed to study the "problem" of dissenting opinion (although its phrased "radical extremism" it is fairly clearly an attempt to find way to hang the "domestic terrorist" label on those that disagree with the government). To me, that is far more troubling than the guy with his hunting rifle being afraid the police or army would kick his ass in an armed revolt. I won't make any tinfoil-hat claims that the government is going to be sending random people to Guantanamo because of what they posted on the internet, but they can make things like air travel virtually impossible for people, based on no evidence that would hold up in our courts, and no chance of a day in court ever happening because they won't answer to anyone about why someone's on the no-fly list, all in the name of "national security". While I have no personal experience with, nor have I heard any first-hand accounts of, life in the former Soviet Union, the squelching of dissent and the fear of being seen as "out of line" sounds as if we're heading towards a situation very much like what I was told the former Soviet Union was like.

Re:Good.

[swillden]

It wasn't really an ID card anyway. Most people who access Government services (usually some kind of welfare) need a card of some sort it identify themselves.

This is true. I actually spent a couple weeks working on IBM's bid, mostly reviewing the security and privacy aspects of the design, so I got to understand the focus pretty well. The primary purposes of the card were to replace some 17 different government-issued ID cards with a single card, and to reduce benefit fraud. It was really about efficiency, not increasing government control. Not only that, the Howard government's RFP did take the privacy aspects pretty seriously -- they wanted strong guarantees that sensitive information on the card could only be read by authorized government personnel, that those personnel would only have access to the portions that they were suppose to read, and that the back-end databases had fine-grained access control and detailed and indestructible audit trails. One option that I recommended be added to IBM's proposal was to avoid, wherever possible, retaining any data in the back-end database. One of the ways a smart card can enhance privacy is by allowing the database to be effectively dispersed into millions of tiny, un-cross-referenceable pieces.

Arguably, it would have been *better* for privacy to put a comprehensive, well-designed system in place rather than letting government departments integrate their data in an ad hoc, uncontrolled way.

That said, I'm not particularly unhappy to see this die. Even supposing Australia did an excellent job of implementing this system, so that it improved privacy rather than harmed it, that's not to say that all of those back-end controls wouldn't be quietly removed through a series of "upgrades" (and the option to avoid storing the data in the back end was just that, an option, and it would have increased costs and created some inconvenience).

Most of all, I'd rather not have US politicians able to point to a well-implemented Australian system and say "see, we can do it too!". I have no confidence that a US system would be as well-implemented as what we proposed to Australia.

Re:Good.

[Z00L00K]

As I noted - passports aren't good or convenient. Awkward size, sensitive and too easy to forge.

Re:Good.

[dbIII]

In the mid 1990s the competition policy introduced at the Federal level upon the State Government run eletricity organisations was based upon the electricity pricing and management structure in California. It amazed and annoyed a few people in the electricity industry at the time and it did apply to the entire country.

Re:Good.

[dbIII]

There is no free market for electricity in Australia the same way there really is no free market for wired telecommunications in the USA. Those that own the wire really have a monopoly even with odd contrivances to try to pretend they don't. Also if nobody is moving electrons about in your local area there is no way to indulge in the fantasy that you are buying it from 1000km away - which means the more expensive power sources get subsidised by the less expensive ones to keep the grid up.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia actually copied the system that California used to determine power distribution and pricing despite everyone with a clue pointing out that it was a train wreck in progress. Show us your worst and we will copy it.

And yet, Foster's comes from Australia. Explain that!

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And yet, Foster's comes from Australia. Explain that!"

Actually, in the USA it comes from Canada.

Re:Good.

[AbRASiON]

Australia loves copying you guys, trust me I know - I live here.

The hummer is taking off big here now too......... oh the humanity.

Re:Good.

[DeadChobi]

Except for the Condorcet Method, which is arguably the most fair method of conducting elections. Granted, it can develop into stalemates, but it accounts for everyone's preferences and still gives you an opportunity to weigh in on a vote when your top pick is eliminated from the race.

Re:Good.

[BiggerIsBetter]

To me, that is far more troubling than the guy with his hunting rifle being afraid the police or army would kick his ass in an armed revolt.

FWIW, I agree about the troubling part, but I'd almost wonder if the Armed Forces would be among those at the front of a revolt. I figure (hope) there's enough good men there to serve their country, as opposed to serving their country's politicians, and maybe enough of them have had a gutsfull of their current deployment. Certainly plenty of Vets would be. Seems strange to imagine though, an armed coup of the US government. It's happened elsewhere though, so why not?

Re:Good.

[AGMW]

... they wanted strong guarantees that sensitive information on the card could only be read by authorized government personnel, that those personnel would only have access to the portions that they were suppose to read, and that the back-end databases had fine-grained access control and detailed and indestructible audit trails. ...

For me, this is, in a nut shell, the problem. You simply cannot guarentee security. Look at the muppets in the UK Government handing out details from various secure systems to one and all on CDs because it was cheaper than sending it recorded delivery! I ask you ... how can anyone gaurentee security when the offices of such a scheme will undoubtable be staffed with mouth-breathers like that!

If you can accept that total security is impossible, you can take the next logical step to the ID theives. Once they can produce an ID card with your name but their bio-information (picture, finger prints, etc), they haven't just stolen your identity, they are, ipso-facto, you! It's no longer a case of poor you, someone cloned your identity but HALT! - who are you? Why are you trying to access this other person's bank account? Prove it .... er ... here's my ID card ... yer - right!

Without guarenteed security, you should have to provide something else to back up your ID card, at which point we are no better off, and it won't stop any of the things the Goverment are claiming it will stop - Benefit Fraud: a large percentage (over 60%) of benefit fraud is people over-claiming for real issues and an ID card won't stop that. Terrorism: Spain has ID cards and they had the Madrid Train Bombers. US 9/11 terrorists booked their air tickets with their real names. ... so it won't help the Gov with any of their stated aims, and they must know that, so why are they still pushing for it? It's for control, or back handers from the companies who are going to make a mint from it!

It's just a HUGE cost with no benefit for the common man who will be footing the bill!

Just Say No

Re:Good.

[AGMW]

2. They are easily forged.

Good luck with coming up with an ID card that isn't easily forged! I think easily forged means different things to different people. To the man on the street it may mean can I just pop it into a scanner/photo copier and copy that sucker but to people who actively want to forge them it just means is it possible to forge. Worse than that, is it possible to make a good enough forgery?

If there's only one place that makes them you can still bribe someone (or some group) to get a copy - you simply cannot guarentee that an ID card is a real ID card!

If ID Cards cannot be 100% guarenteed as unforgeable, and the associated data cannot be guarenteed as 100% secure, then they are basically useless at best, and even more dangerous than no ID card at worst because the muppets who are employed to check ID Cards will accept them as bona fide ID without question - the point being that if you have to ask questions or ask to see another form of ID then what is the point of the ID Card in the first place!

Re:Good.

[fotbr]

I'd guess there'd be a quite a few members of the armed forces that would not blindly follow orders to kill their fellow citizens. The police, on the other hand, would probably see it as an excuse to finally play with all their toys.

Either way, I doubt any sort of armed revolt will happen in my lifetime, since the majority of my countrymen are happy as long as they can watch "reality" tv shows. Sure, there'll be the occasional localized riot, or the odd lunatic or two trying to blow stuff up, but I see my countrymen, in general, as too apathetic for any sort of nation-wide revolt -- which, my opinion, is a good thing, since there's a lot that can be done to fix our problems before resorting to that sort of violence. On the other hand, we've had a civil war before, so we're by no means immune from that sort of violence either.

The group of native americans withdrawing from treaties, rejecting US citizenship, and trying to form an actual nation (instead of just being a "nation" on paper) is far more interesting than those shows, but is getting very little media attention.

Re:Good.

[swillden]

I'm no fan of national ID cards, but I disagree with your conclusions.

Any ID card is just a shortcut for identity verification, not an identity in and of itself. Identity (of the sort we're talking about here) is built upon two things: "breeder" documents and identity aggregation. Breeder documents are things like birth certificates, driver's licenses, passports, etc. Those are used to establish an identity in the first place, and biometrics can be used to bind that identity to a particular person. Aggregation is the further accumulation of identity history.

If someone were able to bribe a government official and get them to issue a valid ID card in your name (and since the biometrics have to be digitally-signed, it would have to be done through a legitimate issuing organization), you would still have all of the breeder documents and other documents related to the aggregated history, and the identity thief would not. The Australian system would have stored high-resolution scans of the documents, with part of each scan obscured with a one-way warping function so that the stored image could not be used to produce a duplicate, making it easy for you to prove that you provided the original documents. In addition, we proposed a 3D scan using some new technology developed by IBM that allows not only the content of the paper but the physical chunk of pulped wood to be identified. Even a perfect forgery would still be recognized as a different piece of paper (and the process is not affected by folding, crumpling, or aging).

In addition, you would also have your ID card, with your biometrics on it, with the duly-authorized signatures. The combination would make a very compelling case, and the system proposed for Australia had a mechanism to revoke cards which could be used to invalidate the thief's card. Assuming the audit trail were not corrupted or lost, it would even be a simple matter to identify the official or officials responsible for producing the forgery.

Also, the approach I suggested for the Australia card would also have stored a uniquely-identifiable usage history on the card itself, but not on the back-end system. The timestamped usage history would have been checkable against stored transaction history, but the digitally-signed entries would be basically impossible to replicate. There were a couple of other mechanisms that would have had similar effects.

The only way for the identity thief to overcome these last issues is to arrange to have your card revoked, thus justifying the "clean" state of his card. That, however, also serves the purpose of notifying you of the problem, when you're told that the card you're using has been revoked.

ID cards of the sort proposed in Australia are a *solution* to the problem of identity theft, not an enabler. Strong ID, nearly unforgeable, tightly bound to the individual with multiple biometrics, with a careful validation process on issuance, good audit trails and an impossible to replicate aggregated usage trail make identity theft enormously harder, and identity recovery enormously easier. The prevalence of identity theft also provides a force to counter any attempts to weaken the system's audit trails.

Personally, I think the disadvantages of national ID cards outweigh the benefits, but the issue you raise argues for them, not against them.

Re:Good.

[mdwh2]

So how about this for an utterly radical idea - produce a passport that's in a convenient shape, and harder to forge!

Your argument is no justification for the various compulsory "ID card" schemes that various Governments around the world are trying to implement. People who oppose ID cards are not against standardisation of cards, or against making them in the shape of a card rather than a book(!) - it's the various other aspects (e.g., centralised databases, the cost, being compulsory to own or even carry).

Re:Good.

[dbIII]

I was actually talking about electricity distribution when I mentioned power. Back in the mid 1990s when the first impression of L.A. was sometimes a brownout in the airport there was a proposal to base Australia's electricity competition structure and really the entire management structure with what the Californians had made an obvious mess of. Against all reason and opposition from every state it was implemented.

Re:Good.

[DeadChobi]

I read your post as saying that Australia has basically never done anything right, and I was trying to say that the Condorcet Method for holding elections, which is used in your country, is awesome.

Re:Good.

[mjwx]

I don't find the passport size an issue. For the amount of info the passport is designed to hold I think the size is quiet small. I don't find I need to use my passport too much in foreign countries, my Australian Proof of Age card or Drivers License is sufficient to prove my name, age and/or ability to drive. the only times I need to use my passport is when entering or leaving a country, which is exactly what it was intended to do (many countries will use the passport to store Visa On Arrival details rather than muck about with separate documentation). Modern passports (from western nations) are pretty difficult to forge. Especially considering that if you are trying to get anything else than a tourist visa they will be checked with the authorities involved in the nation of issue. However forgery isn't the issue with passport security, the real problem is theft which really isn't a fault with the passport, rather the blame lies with people who are too stupid or lazy to keep an eye on their important documentation.

Re:Good.

[AGMW]

nearly unforgeable

I agree with you that efforts can be made to make an ID Card more difficult to forge, but if it isn't impossible, IMHO, they are worthless, or more likely worse than worthless.

From one end of the scale of bribing an official for a personalized copy, to manufacturing your own good enough copy, there is simply no way to make the system foolproof (for some value of fool).

I'd have to say I love the concept of ID built into the pulp of the paper - now that is something I'd not heard of and would definately mean the forgers will have to raise their game, but that's what forgers do. What's to stop the forgers getting hold of the same technology and cloning the paper too? Sure, it makes it more difficult/expensive to produce an undetectable forgery, but as technology improves it becomes cheaper! The "Catch Me If You Can" chap from the US spent a bit of time looking into the plans for the UK ID Card (by the sound of it way less impressive than your ideas) and said he'd be surprised if the genuine ones would come to market before the forgeries!

... and really, what do you, as a citizen who is footing the bill, gain? For us in the UK where we currently don't have to carry anything, it's lose-lose! I guess if you live in a country where you already have to carry ID, have to carry your driving licence if you're driving, etc, etc, then a single card to cover them all may be of benefit, but at what cost?

Re:Good.

[swillden]

From one end of the scale of bribing an official for a personalized copy, to manufacturing your own good enough copy, there is simply no way to make the system foolproof (for some value of fool).

Bribing an official is always an option, but just how are you going to forge the digital signatures?

You have to either make an earthshaking mathematical breakthrough, or somehow gain access to the keys. Since the keys would be in a tamper-reactive crypto hardware module that will never give them up, and is itself stored in a secure data center, actually getting copies of them is impossible even for the officials and the system administrators. So, you have to get the systems that normally do the signing to sign yours -- which means you're back to bribing an official.

I'd have to say I love the concept of ID built into the pulp of the paper - now that is something I'd not heard of and would definately mean the forgers will have to raise their game, but that's what forgers do. What's to stop the forgers getting hold of the same technology and cloning the paper too?

Two things. First, they'd have to invent some way of building a duplicate piece of paper, fiber by fiber. That's pretty tough, but it might be possible. Second, they have to find some way of reversing the one-way function applied to a region of the stored data so they can reconstruct that portion. Unless, of course, they can actually get access to the original and scan it themselves, but if the forger can actually get hold of your personal documents, you've got big trouble because then they don't have to duplicate the documents, they can just steal them.

Well, I guess another option is to get hold of a copy of the scan before the one-way function is applied. Hmmm, there is one attack route I hadn't considered (I only had two weeks to look at it during the bid period -- a more thorough analysis was planned as part of the implementation, though). Assuming they can get the un-warped scan, and assuming they can reconstruct the paper at the fiber level, the fact that a reproduction has been made will become obvious when two different people present identical documents. Then you'll have to fall back on testimony.

Really, none of that is any different from the situation without an ID card, though, except that without the card the ID thief is likely to get away with it for longer before you realize there's something funny going on.

... and really, what do you, as a citizen who is footing the bill, gain?

Well, the goal is actually cost savings, so what you gain is less bill to foot. And, as I mentioned before, you also gain some resistance against ID theft. However, I agree with you that on balance it's a bad trade, particularly if it becomes required to carry the card (of course it wasn't supposed to be required in Australia, but once the ID is in place, that's not hard to change).

Oh, and proof of this.

[ta bu shi da yu]

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1416572.htm is a transcript of what was said:

Bob Hawke: ... The Australia Card legislation, which my Government sees as essential to our continued campaign both to finally eliminate tax evasion and fraud in this country and also to the elimination of welfare cheating.
.
.
.
John Howard: When you realise that the assumption of the Australia Card legislation is that every Australian is a cheat, when you realise that it involves establishing a level of intrusion of a draconian kind into the day to day activities of many people and when people really read and understand the legislation, I believe that the support that some people feel, particularly in the ranks of the Government for this proposal, is going to disappear.

That was always the way with John Howard, slippery bastard. He said one thing and then did the other. Thoroughly untrustworthy. How he stayed in power so long, heavens only knows.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[syousef]

That was always the way with John Howard, slippery bastard. He said one thing and then did the other. Thoroughly untrustworthy. How he stayed in power so long, heavens only knows

Sadly the reason is that Australians were more interested in low interest rates on their home loans than in any kind of social justice. The real reason he's out is simply that interest rates started going up despite his assurances. Once people realized they weren't going to get their low interest rates (and that the new industrial relations laws were really going to hurt them) they threw him out.

He didn't just suddenly become a "slippery bastard". He always was one. He continually did backflips. He continually failed to support Australian interests in the international arena. He continually sided with big business and against unions which given the working class population is ridiculous.

I do hope Rudd's a better PM. He's a politician, so he's only going to go so far when his own neck is on the line, but it got so bad with Howard that almost any change is welcome.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[timmarhy]

Are you all stupid in the head?

the world was a VERY different place when bob hawke was in power, comparing comments made 20 years ago to today's climate is idiotic in the extreme.

and don't fucking kid yourselfs, Rudd is just as big of a snake. Knowing labor they have scraped the "national ID" so they can bring in their own "mega national ID". Where the liberals are all about less government, labor are all about MORE government... take a guess which one is going love the idea of more power that a national ID card will bring. It's standard for the incoming government to dump all the old governments idea's anyway, i don't see what your all so excited about. get back to me in 12 months and then we will see.

oh and john howard stayed in power for so long because he was a smart motherfucker who got rid of the 80 billion in national debt and 12% interest rates that labor left us with last time. he also got us back our AAA credit rating, brought the economy out of recession and instigated much needed tax reform.

all you lefty tree huggers love the idea of labor because they try to please everyone, but in the real world when you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no one and making a big screw up of everything. that's what a labor government brings to the table.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[Nazlfrag]

Let us pay tribute to a great man.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[blind monkey 3]

Easy to get rid of the debt when you sell all your assets, also easy to manage the economy when your main concern is politicians super. How about creating a scheme and calling it a "Future Fund"? WTF is a "Future Fund"? Thirty billion put aside to cover for our FANTASTIC POLITICIANS UNFUNDED SUPER!!! Don't pay for hospitals, don't pay for schools - I know it is supposed to be the job of the state government to pay for public schools but not for Universities and higher education institutions. I gather a Howard brown nose like you would have read the latest assessment on the funding of our education institutions - from overseas assessments AND government assessment (ABS and treasury, which Howard suppressed) - no, I do not think this bunch are going to be any different, they will put their interests first.
I believe we don't have much to choose from in Australia and am very much inclined to tell people to vote for whoever is not in power - just to keep the manure turning. Don't give the bastards too much chance to feather their own nests, they certainly don't have any long term plans, apart from getting them selves on as many boards as they can when they leave politics.

You can argue about how great the liberals are if you want but to spot the difference between the two is a mighty achievement (just consider the fact that the liberals introduced the same stuff (ID card - and you should pay attention, the ID card legislation was open-ended, if Labor wanted to "sneak in" what ever they wanted, they could have - I am positive the Liberals would have as I am that once this government get cosy, they'll want to.

A pox on both their houses.
Let's hope Gunns set up a pulp mill near you so you can show everyone how they have nothing to worry about - just kidding, I hope I will be shown to be wrong about this bunch, I certainly felt like a right moron for voting the last one in.

Meet the new boss, same as the old one.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[timmarhy]

one of the key things labor supporters always attempt to make a point of in federal elections is medical and education - both of which are STATE RUN, and guess what party is in power on a state level? LABOR.

The truth is, that federal spending on education and health increased dramaticly under howard, it's just the state labor governments are fucking useless at running them.

And why are your criticizing the liberals for selling assets to pay off debts? they didn't get the country in such debt in the first place, and it's just sound financial management to sell assets to rid yourself of debt (in fact it's finance 101)

it's also part of smaller government. although i DO disagree with some of their moves, such as how they handled telstra. they should have only sold the retail sector of telstra and setup the wholesale as a not for profit. they also need to give the accc some more teeth, same with consumer protection and fair trading.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[jthorpe]

I do hope Rudd's a better PM. He's a politician, Rudd has very little experience as a politician - strictly speaking, he's spent most of his life as a diplomat. Had you asked about Kevin Rudd two years ago, people would be saying "Kevin who?".

With regards to the sale of public assets, I'd say the state governments (which have been Labor run for years in every state) are the worst and not for the better of the state, but merely to increase the coffers. Bob Carr, the recent former premier in NSW was a great example - he established a number of projects funded by public-private partnerships and now works on a part-time basis (paid $$$) for the investment bank (Macquarie) which funded these projects.

Not to mention all the propaganda advertising being played on the radio at the moment trying to re-assure us that it's ok that they're selling off the electricity services....

I think people had become bored of John Howard more than anything. They saw him as nearing retirement and decided to vote for the opposition simply to remove the incumbent for the sake of doing so, blind to the inexperience of Rudd and lack of policies from his party (for example, Kyoto is still no closer to being implemented than it was under a Howard government, despite the common misconception of otherwise). Kevin Rudd has offered a lot of spin and has done well in "keeping up appearances", but I don't invisage any positive change to this country as a result.

On the topic of an "Access Card" equivalent, I wouldn't write it off yet - the only thing that's for sure is that it won't be called an "Access Card", it will most likely be named with a more subtle name.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[LordLucless]

The reason he stayed in so long is that labour fell apart, and stayed fallen for most of his term. Their leadership changed every few years - and really, even Howard was better than Latham.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[blind monkey 3]

You obviously don't read very well, I pointed out that ALTHOUGH HIGH SCHOOL MIGHT BE STATE RESPONSIBILITY, HIGHER EDUCATION IS FEDERAL. Every report has shown that spending is down on this as well as other areas, you want to go around turning a blind eye to things, looking at your obviously precious Liberal party through your rose coloured glasses. Spending has not increased in comparison to the rest of the developed countries, this is another story, there are plenty but you obviously are only interested in seeing things that agree with you. Health is the same, just google it and read a bit, it might be enlightening for you. Oh government debt was around for a lot longer than Labor was in power, we had debt in the sixties, it actually started taking off in Fraser's era (Howard was Treasurer). I still maintain both are only interested in one thing - their own little club. You think Howard was great, good luck to you, our infrastructure is falling apart, there is no plan for the future of our country (apart for THE FUTURE FUND!! YIPPEEE), water resource management (gets a good run every election - remember last election when they were going to fix the Murray?), rail always gets a mention as well, all forgotten within a few months. These things are obviously not important to you because like your reading, your vision is selfish and self serving, blind to anything else.

By the way, why don't you check your facts before making rash statements about the National debt? We owe more than when Labor was in power The Age, Howard has shifted the debt to the public (by not providing what was previously provided) and people as ignorant as you believe they have fixed the debt problem, so long as we keep running a balance of trade deficit, we are heading for troubled times. Neither party has an answer for this.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[zaydana]

And why are your criticizing the liberals for selling assets to pay off debts? they didn't get the country in such debt in the first place, and it's just sound financial management to sell assets to rid yourself of debt (in fact it's finance 101)

Ever played monopoly?

Thank god you're not in government.

Re:Oh, and proof of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The howard government was the highest taxing government in the history of australia, and still had to sell off natural monopolies to try and cover its worthless military forays. The only western government less capable is the bush government who took the debt free country left by clinton and drove it nearly $1T into debt.

Interest rates are much the same world wide and howard's early rate reduction was more due to keating's management than anything howard did:
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2007/11/quick-quiz-whats-wrong-with-this-graph.html

I'm getting mixed signals

[bcg]

I find this surprising considering only very recently that Rudd wanted several government bodies to clear media releases, including research, with the PM's office.

I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies such as these.

Disclaimer: I am an Australian lefty.

Re:I'm getting mixed signals

[Anonymous Coward]

First; the issue you raise is not relevant. Second; Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard did the same thing. Third; what problem do you have with a Government wanting to know what press releases are going to say? They aren't censoring anything.

Solving real-world problems?

[Nomen Publicus]

It is interesting to see that not one western government that has claimed that ID cards are essential for the war against fraud, terrorism, crime and quite possibly global warming, has been able to present a viable case to the public.

As costs rise (the UK ID card scheme is now expected to cost between 10 and 20 BILLION pounds over 10 years) the government arguments become more and more vague and frantic rather than more solid and sensible.

ID cards seem to be more about giving huge IT contracts to the usual suspect systems companies than actually solving real-world problems.

Re:Solving real-world problems?

[Brian Gordon]

My jaw absolutely drops to see how horribly inefficient and corrupt corporations/the government/capitalism/EVERYTHING is for it to cost 20 billion pounds to just give everyone an ID card. Lock the guru in the closet and pay him $100 an hour for a solid week to build the entire system. Then run 50 million $0.01 ID cards off the printers and laminate them for $0.10 each. Holy crap, it's not that hard!

Re:Solving real-world problems?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting the costs of updating all systems to recognize the card. The card would probably not be used only as a substitute for driver's id, but also as an electronic ID for lots of different systems

Re:Solving real-world problems?

[tristian_was_here]

I live in the UK and I think that the UK ID cards is a great idea, the government will know 100% about me, heck I will even give them a sperm sample to clone my idiot-ness.
I could become a terror cell waiting to be a terrorist and go to some religious building other than a christian churn or something, who knows?

BTW thats sarcasm and because the UK anti-terror law is stupid I don't fancy spending a month locked up without trial.

Re:Solving real-world problems?

[stavros-59]

It is interesting to see that not one western government that has claimed that ID cards are essential for the war against fraud, terrorism, crime and quite possibly global warming, has been able to present a viable case to the public. As costs rise (the UK ID card scheme is now expected to cost between 10 and 20 BILLION pounds over 10 years) the government arguments become more and more vague and frantic rather than more solid and sensible.

As this is the Australian ID card and I'm an Australian who has followed the very flimsy information released to the public, I think that maybe we are reviewing and discussing something that was not put up by a government as a government initiated project. We seem to be fed this idea that governments initiate these proposals following major policy investigations of all available options and draw up specificiations which go out to tender so qualified companies can prepare bids. I don't think that's the way it happens in reality.

My suspicion is that members of the government were given a convincing powerpoint demonstration of a "wonderful ID system" that will solve all your problems followed by a great lunch and got sucked in. No policy, no preparation and no review of the proposals by the public service or anyone else, let alone the Senate (our house of review)

It was never documented to go out to tender and was apparently determined by negotiation. The whole thing sucks.

More personal?

[fahrbot-bot]

The card would have contained an RFID tag with the person's name, date of birth, gender, address, signature, card number, card expiration date, and Medicare number, but there were also provisions to add more personal data later on.

Hmmm..

• more personal-data: height, weight, hair & eye color
• more-personal data: penis size

What exactly is your problem with ID cards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many countries have implemented national ID card schemes. In the US, where many people don't even have a passport and credentials required to get state drivers licenses (and other forms of state ID) vary widely. What exactly is the problem with having some reliable method of identifying a particular person?

Re:What exactly is your problem with ID cards?

[Zey]

What exactly is the problem with having some reliable method of identifying a particular person?

Too convenient, less intrusive and far less paperwork for the bureaucrats to shuffle when compared to the existing 100 points of ID check ;-). Seriously though, a card with RFID deserved to be killed dead: highly dodgy for anyone to be able to scan your ID from a distance (and potentially steal it).

ID cards and government database sharing are useful to governments for clubbing individuals who've messed up their paperwork. An ID card which works in our favour by reducing the red tape and paperwork we must deal with by auto-filling in the data they already have... now that would be a winner.

Re:What exactly is your problem with ID cards?

[JohnBailey]

Many countries have implemented national ID card schemes. In the US, where many people don't even have a passport and credentials required to get state drivers licenses (and other forms of state ID) vary widely. What exactly is the problem with having some reliable method of identifying a particular person? Where do you get the word "reliable" from?

Re:What exactly is your problem with ID cards?

[jimicus]

What exactly is the problem with having some reliable method of identifying a particular person?

I suspect you're trolling, since a similar question comes up every time the ID card debate is raised.

Nevertheless, I'll bite.

You're asking the wrong question. When a government wants something, the correct question is "what benefit does this offer to me as a citizen?" and measure it up against the costs. This is because government exists for the benefit of the citizens.

As soon as you start saying "I don't see why not", you're essentially accepting that you should do something for the benefit of the government. While this isn't in and of itself dangerous, it has a lot of potential to be. For instance, the UK government is currently making noises about ID cards - yet in the last month there have been no fewer than 3 major instances of personal data being lost by UK government departments. (Google for Revenue Child Benefit data loss, DVLA data loss and NHS data loss if you don't believe me).

Over 26 million records have gone missing and for most of those records there was more than enough data to carry out fraud. And we're supposed to trust this government with a single database which contains all of this and more?

Re:What exactly is your problem with ID cards?

[Colin Smith]

This is because government exists for the benefit of the citizens. "government exists to benefit some citizens more than others."

There you go. Much more accurate.

Re:What exactly is your problem with ID cards?

[stry_cat]

You're asking the wrong question. When a government wants something, the correct question is "what benefit does this offer to me as a citizen?" and measure it up against the costs. This is because government exists for the benefit of the citizens.

Actually you're also asking the wrong question. The correct question is "Is this a legitimate function of government?"

I can't think of any legitimate function of government which would require a national ID card.

Re:What exactly is your problem with ID cards?

[jimicus]

Depending on where you are in the world, there are plenty of legitimate functions of government which would benefit from a national ID card.

Health and benefits provision immediately spring to mind - particularly if you're concerned about only providing such benefits to taxpayers.

However, neither of these particularly require a national ID card. And in many cases, introducing one would simply add another layer of bureaucracy which criminals would work around and legitimate citizens would be inconvenienced by.

(Side note: I explained to my MP that benefit cheats are already criminals, adding an ID card which it's illegal to either own a fake or give false information to obtain simply gives them something else illegal they'll have to do - and by cheating the system, they've already demonstrated that they don't really care about what the law says. Criminals don't tend to obey the law. The reply basically said "yes, we know criminals don't obey the law. We're trying to figure out a solution to that. Any ideas?")

Australia copy US or Malaysia

[sebol]

Malaysia has been using Identity card a long time ago, just 5 years bak it use MyKad, which is conteained with RFID.

Re:Australia copy US or Malaysia

[MichaelSmith]

The difference between Australia and most other countries is that Australians firmly believe that the Government works for them, not the other way around.

Re:Australia copy US or Malaysia

[Anonymous Coward]

In Malaysia, the ID card is used to ensure that people of a specific religion get preferental treatment.

(For people that don't know, Malaysian ID cards record whether you're officially muslim or not. Various facets of goverment open up for Muslims than they do for non-muslims.)

Thank God!

[skeftomai]

The end times have been delayed!

Costly work into its feasability before today...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how much Mega-$$$ were spent, eg, on feasibility studies...

that might have been spent on improving Australia's
Internet access.

Even costly residential developments (eg, Mawson Lakes, SA)
include many houses, that cannot get ADSL, let alone ADSL2+ ...despite that University of South Australia and SA's
"Technology Park" are located immediately adjacent to it.

What?

[Kurayamino-X]

This comes up every decade or two with the tech of the day implimented and gets shot down every time.

Honestly though? I don't see why. Lets see, I've had to provide my drivers licence, my birth certificate, my tax file number, a bank statement with my address on it, etc. to the government for some benefits recently, all this card would be is conveniant. It means instead of collecting all this crap and digging out an old and fragile certificate I'd just have to take one or two cards, and it's not like there's anything on there the police can't find by running your licence number anyway.

So, anyone care to step up to the plate and explain why this is such an incredible invasion of privacy when we've all been asked for our papers, american and australian, for decades?

Re:What?

[Admiral Ag]

The usual answer is that people protect their privacy by revealing select information to different entities. For example, you'll tell your bank some stuff, the health system some other stuff, the welfare agency some other stuff, the stores where you have an account some other stuff and so on. In no case is there one entity that has all your personal information. This means two things. First, it means that if one of them is compromised (as has happened in Britain), the information about you that will be compromised is far from complete. Second, it means that any agency or company that has your personal information only has fragments of it and so has less power over you. Knowledge is power, and the ability to selectively reveal information about yourself to differing persons is necessary for the preservation of privacy.

There's a really good SF novel called "Shield" by Poul Anderson that explores this idea. Unlike a lot of SF novels, it actually has something profound to say.

Re:What?

[The Master Control P]

In short, when it comes to the government having information about you the best policy is "deny unless explicitly allowed." Now, if they just wanted to put a (secure) rfid chip in your driver's license that says the same thing the license says, fine.

But whenever this comes up it involves all of your identifying information being on one chip that can be read by any government agency's scanner. It also tends to involve a similar centralized database that's just begging to be abused. Remember: If supporters of a law, when confronted about possible abuses that it would permit, angrily deny that such will occur then you have discovered exactly what the law will be used for as soon and often as possible.

So what do you want?

[bruce_the_loon]

An RFID card that can be read can fill in all that data for you, but is also intrusive. Can't have the best of both worlds.

I prefer the manual filling in of forms. Makes sure I get it right. Can you see the unwashed hippy behind the counter saying that the CARD says I'm a female lion trainer because some tit miscaptured the data? And refusing to change it because "the computer can't be wrong"

Given the magnitude of errors South Africa already comes up with, changing gender, ethnic group, wrong photo to wrong ID number, wrong details etc, can you imagine the crap when they try to do more? I doubt this country is that unique either.

Re:So what do you want?

[Zey]

An RFID card that can be read can fill in all that data for you, but is also intrusive. Can't have the best of both worlds.

Of course you can. It's currently called the magnetic strip. Can't be read from a distance, just with a reader. Go high tech with the basic principle and you'll use NVRAM or a DVD-RW optical stripe. Go high tech/low tech and you can have the data written in highly miniaturized bar codes, too small for the naked eye but, again, visible to readers.

Government will know what it wants to know know about you. That fight was lost decades ago. The questions remaining are: (1) whether that right is annoying at the day to day level, (2) whether we can at least benefit in lower paperwork from it (rather than being punished for clerical errors), and, (3) whether we can stop everyone else stealing our details in the process, given most governments are managed at the bureaucratic level by incompetent baboons.

Re:So what do you want?

[mrmeval]

http://www.cardtechnology.com/article.html?id=20061117ST7IODKW

Re:So what do you want?

[The Archon V2.0]

Can you see the unwashed hippy behind the counter saying that the CARD says I'm a female lion trainer because some tit miscaptured the data? And refusing to change it because "the computer can't be wrong"

Unwashed hippy? Please. I've had more trouble from people in neat little outfits. A particularly stupid medical database at this one hospital determined that only pregnant women got a certain series of blood tests. I've been directed to the maternity department by the desk jockeys more times than I can count. (And if I wasn't, my blood was.)

Well, I wasn't pregnant, and for good reason: I'm a guy. Quite clearly. Deep voice, male features, facial hair, little "M" next to my name on my hospital ID and photo ID. Want to lose faith in humanity quickly? Watch a person trust a computer screen saying something like "this is maternal bloodwork" in preference to the overwhelming evidence that the person in front of them is a man. Then watch a completely different person do the same thing one month later. (To their credit, a few of the people I dealt with just got a kick out of it and then told the computer to send the bloodwork to the proper place. But it hardly makes up for the ones who assumed that an autofilled field on their screen had been brought down the mountain on stone tablets.)

Re:So what do you want?

[Hognoxious]

Some of my friends (who are Belgian) got married in South Africa. Unfortunately, they spelled his name wrong on the certificate. So for the three months until he got it sorted out he was legally single and she was married, but to someone who doesn't exist.

Re:So what do you want?

[scuba0]

Well it's not about the magnetic strip now is it, its about RFID and no mather how "secure" the government or you say it is, something that is meant to do one thing can often do a thousand other things its not supposed to or gets used as. RFID is proven to be and it will be shown insecure and stupid as it is used today. Though I have to say that to monitor objects (or people) is a real charm with it, but thats only benefit.

I'll probably feel like cattle in a few years where you are told what to do and how to do it and be monitored doing it.highly miniaturized bar codes, too small for the naked eye but, again, visible to readers.

Go here for more information

[nighty5]

Check out the following for more in-depth information to this national ID system.

http://www.privacy.org.au/Campaigns/ID_cards/HSAC.html

I am pleased to see Rudd taking responsibility and listening to Australians, something Howard refused to do which ultimately lead to his demise.

It was just a wedge politics stunt

[dbIII]

It was old fashioned wedge politics and not really meant to be implented seriously. Put up a thin end of the wedge policy and then make fun of the opposition for over reacting, making them look stupid and incompetant. Another classic piece of wedge politics this term was actually martial law "for the children" - sending the army into remote area with child abuse and removing many rights of the residents there, but the opposition did not take the bait and martial law was not really taken advantage of.

Re:governments seem to be clueless

[zmollusc]

Governments are clueless about most things. They don't need to worry about how or if things actually work, because as the ruling elite they can fix any problems that directly affect them with a phone call to one of their friends.
For example, if John Q Public needs a visa or a passport there are all sorts of hurdles to overcome, if a minister wants something similar for an employee they just ask a buddy in the relevant department to sort it out.
If the 'entire government database of everything' got leaked and posted on teh intarwebs, guess which group would have new national id/banking/passport information issued first?

Nice, but watch out for those tasers

[vandan]

I'm not really surprised that Labor has pulled back from this. It's not exactly a popular move. And they did just get in thanks to a massive working-class movement that rose to overthrow their 'workchoices' industrial relations bullshit, so they know they can't smack people with this kind of thing at the moment.

But only a couple of minutes ago, I watched an ABC ( the public broadcaster in Australia ) news report on the push for widespread use of tasers in policing. It will be interesting to see if they cave into the pressure from the police and conservatives ( as the report hinted ). For me personally, it's difficult to say which is worse out of the RFID devices from Satan, and tasers. As an activist, I'm a little worried about being shot ( and killed, as has happened to 297 others already ). I've already witnessed some absolute atrocities committed against peaceful activists around me.

Re:Nice, but watch out for those tasers

[Cinnaman]

I hope Tasers never make it to the police force here, the company that makes them cites false data to make it look like no one has died from the use of them. I saw footage where the police repeatedly tasered a black guy with epilepsy until he stopped "resisting", he stopped moving due to heart failure (and died). The police's defense is that they weren't informed of his condition.

Making me proud to be an australian again

[mahju]

I'm and Aussie, lived overseas now for more than 5 years, and have lived with people's attitude of Australia sliding down with stuff like this, us back peddling out of the Kyoto agreement that we helped set up, not simply saying sorry for things we have done wrong, and taking asylum seekers not to civilised facilities in Australia, or straight back to where they came from, but rather to dump them on a legally convenient little island made of bird crap in the pacific for more than a year.

Since then Rudd has come along, and I see Australia in the news here in the UK for things seen more positive in the international areana. What's Rudd done so far since elected in November? well he's;
* Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol (Rudd's first official act)
* Indigenous & Reconciliation (Former prime minister John Howard continually refused during his 11-and-a-half years in power to say "sorry" to Aboriginal Australians; Rudd has promised to make an apology to the "stolen generations" in his first term of government)
* Renewable Energy Target: 20% by 2020
* and now this on ID cards.

I'm getting prouder by the day to be an Australian =D

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[Merls the Sneaky]

You forgot...

Surprise visit to Iraq, promises to remove "combat troops" and send them home, by June.

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[snoggeramus]

I think the reason why Howard refused to go along with this "sorry" business is that he foresaw the "you now need to compensate us with lotsa money" business that is now following. Initial media reports are that a billion dollars is not quite enough.

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[mahju]

I think the reason why Howard refused to go along with this "sorry" business is that he foresaw the "you now need to compensate us with lotsa money" business that is now following. Initial media reports are that a billion dollars is not quite enough.

I agree, he most likely he avoided saying sorry out of fear of a fiscal impact.

He probably didn't get that most people involved wanted first and foremost for the governament to admit they did something wrong, that what was forced upon them was wrong, and that by Howard not saying sorry it implies that the actions were correct.

And again, I agree, bilions for losing your parents, culture, and identity is probably not enough.

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[Verte]

It'd be neato if every government around the world suddenly apologised to all the people they had killed in wars during their existence- I'm sure we've all had relatives lose lives due to the behaviour of some stupid bureaucrats. But would the payout be worth it? What benefit does it bring to the country as a whole?

Frankly, I've got enough things to pay for. My tax dollars already go to enough people on handouts without going to orphans that are (almost always [1]) big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves.

And after all, I'm not sorry. I didn't do anything wrong. The rest of Australia didn't do anything wrong. If you think making up for the injustice is that important to you, start a fund. There are better places my tax money can go. [Admittedly, not where it's going now.]

[1] Which brings up the real issues, including child abuse and mental trauma associated with the stolen generation. But a *blanket* handout, which is what will happen, won't help anyone.

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[digitalchinky]

WTF would the vast majority of people living in Australia right NOW need to say sorry for? Sorry for the atrocities a bunch of retards (many long since dead) undertook while the current population was, at best, running around in nappies with no idea about the world around them.

Saying sorry is very probably a bad idea, it's an acknowledgment that will likely be followed by a bunch of arsehat lawsuits from a load of morons that are 6 generations down the line from the actual 'stolen' individual, though they'll still be taken seriously and wind up with a nice little golden parachute at the expense of contemporary society.

Why would sorry need to be said now, almost 40 years after what is arguably the last occurrence? Why was it not said back then? And given that the whole issue is still clouded in huge amounts of controversy, the realities are likely to be a tad different. A lot of these children were abandoned by their own parents anyway, they were cared for by the government, not stolen. This is not to say it never happened, just that people should slow down a touch and open their eyes.

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[Anonymous Coward]

Any chance of providing a source for "Initial media reports are that a billion dollars is not quite enough"?

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[mahju]

Your knee jerk answer assumes, as Howard did for years, that all people want is money.

As I said, sometimes billions is not enough... and its not always about money.

Re:Making me proud to be an australian again

[Verte]

Ah, I see your point went right over my head.

I'm not really convinced, but it doesn't make a lot of difference now- at least it will be over and done with.

Papiers, bitte!

[Hognoxious]

In most European countries it's compulsory to carry an ID card, maybe that's what he means.

Re:Papiers, bitte!

[fmobus]

Funny. You wrote "papiers, bitte" obviously to mock ze germans, but you are not required to carry an ID at all times in Germany. One must have it (e.g. at home) but doesn't have to bring along at all times.

Re:Papiers, bitte!

[Hognoxious]

You don't have to have it with you, but they can lock you up until such time as you do have it. You do undertsand what compulsory means, right?

Also in Belgium. A few years back an English guy (of Indian ancestry) had stepped a few metres outside to put the rubbish out. They kept him in and interrogated him continuously for 72 hours. This is the country where they totally failed to keep a convicted paedophile in custody - clearly the police have their priorities right.

Can't wait for this in the UK

[MadMidnightBomber]

Next election we can return a Labour government who will get rid of all this ID card silliness. Oh, wait...

Ob convict joke

[Bloke down the pub]

Can't we just tattoo or brand a number onto everyone, like we did with their grandfathers?

When will political correctness learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sex is biological.

Gender is social.

I strongly doubt Canberra would allow a female to mark "man" on her application just because everyone treats her that way.

Yes, mark this flamebait; if you must.

I don't get this

[Majin Bubu]

As an European, actually Italian, I don't really get this. I have been carrying my ID card (which is just a piece of stamped paper, by the way, and very cheap) since I was 15 or so, and it allows me to travel the whole EU (which is some 26 countries, by the way) without passport or visa. It certainly has no "police state" connotations in our culture.
I can understand why a RFID-card would be dangerous to privacy, but our cards have nothing like it. I, for one, would welcome a chipped card (not readable at a distance, of course) that would reduce the clutter in my wallet by integrating, for example, driver license, ID card, medical assistance etc.
Seriously, I don't understand what's the big deal about identifying yourself if necessary. It's not like you have police in the street stopping you at random while you walk around and asking for "papers". Yes, there are checks in sensitive places, like at the soccer stadium, etc. but so what?

Re:I don't get this

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is probably one of the most straight-talking in this thread. Surprised, given the usual anti-ID stance of Slashdotters, that it's been modded as Troll. Or perhaps it's because modern political correctness precludes being open about the consequences of another's actions?

Re:I don't get this

[AGMW]

... that would reduce the clutter in my wallet by integrating, for example, driver license, ID card, medical assistance etc.

Ah, you see here in the UK you only need to carry money! You had already been done the slippery slope of having to carry some form of ID, or indeed forms of ID, so getting them all onto one card would indeed seem like a good idea. We don't have to carry our driving licence, even if we are driving. We don't need to carry any ID at all, at the moment. This means we are far less likely to lose what ID we do sometimes carry, eg if we are going to the bank or something.

So, for us, going from not having to carry anything to having to carry an ID card around seems like a big step, and a big step in the wrong direction! Why should I have to be able to prove who I am? If I've done something wrong they'll take me to a Police station and they can sort out my identity there, at their leisure - the onus would be on me to convince them of my identity. If I have an accident while driving, or am caught for speeding (by a human, which is really unlikely in the camera-mad UK!), you get a producer where you have a few days to take your driving licence and some form of ID to the Police station. That's worked for countless years and it if ain't broke, don't fix it. Worse than that, if it ain't broke certainly don't spend billions of pounds fixing it!

Re:I don't get this

[Majin Bubu]

I see. But if you are caught doing some minor wrong, wouldn't you prefer to be ID'ed and go your way, rather than being forced to spend some time in a Police station? The same goes for tickets, I'd rather be ID'ed and then go pay at the Post Office (there are lots), rather than go to a Police station (just a few).
But, I was born in this mind state, so I understand that while this doesn't look important to me, it's certainly relevant for you. Thanks!

Re:I don't get this

[DarKlajid]

I'm from Germany and I _hate_ to carry my ID with me. I see valid reasons:

- Checking the age (pubs, clubs, etc)
- Official stuff like "It's me, Ben. Let me cast my vote here."
- Making the ID process for _my_ demands towards our government easier (Let's say I want to marry)

But, unfortunately, it is part of the german law that you are required to be always able to ID yourself with an official document. This already smells very badly, although I do have to admit that I was never checked by the police yet. Lots of immigrants are on a regular level, though.

Even worse: Since some month our passports now are forced to include 2 fingerprints in digital form. I feel like a criminal when I only think about it. What for? I see not a single valid usecase for my fingerprints here. I boldly claim that there is none.
I therefor got me a new passport 2 weeks before the fingerprints were required.. It is valid for ten years (unless some dumbed down government over here thinks that those without fingerprints in their passport need to buy(..) a new one) and I'm already careful to avoid
- travelling to much internationally (because as soon as most pages of the passport are filled with stamps you have to replace it)
- travel to one of the "Are you nuts" countries like the US, where they want to rape me in terms of privacy anyway

Quite bad for my business, but for now my employee has no problem with my "No, sorry. Cannot go there" answers.

Re:I don't get this

[Anonymous Coward]

But, unfortunately, it is part of the german law that you are required to be always able to ID yourself with an official document.

Short memories.

Re:I don't get this

[AGMW]

wouldn't you prefer to be ID'ed and go your way

Personally, no I wouldn't. My hackles raise just at the phrase "be ID'ed"! I know the anti-ID/Tinfoil Hat people bandy about the phrase "Police State" way too much, but that just reminds me of WWII movies and, I'm sorry, but I just don't want to live in a society like that! In any case, if they ID you and let you on your way then you obviously haven't done anything to bad anyway, and a verbal warning would likely suffice (certainly in the good old UK with our much maligned local bobbies).

IMHO, if you've done something that warrents a Police Officer insisting on your ID then you should be taken to the local nick anyway - actually, in the UK you can just tell the office yer name and they can already check that that is a real name of a real person living at a specified address, so no need to carry a card - I guess if they already have all yer details what's the problem with an ID Card I hear you say! Well, if they already have all yer details why spend the HUGE amount of money to make everyone carry one is my response!

Belgium has had it for ages

[Govannon]

In WWII the Germans introduced the mandatory ID card here in Belgium and in several other countries too. With the liberation of Belgium our government decided to keep the ID card as they thought is was a good idea.

A few years ago the "Eid" was introduced, which is an ID card with limited personal information (name, address & picture) digitally stored onto the chip. Till this day I am not aware of any mayor privacy rights being broken, or identities being stolen or whatnot. Mind you I am the typical paranoia person when it comes to privacy and anonymity.
You can check the official website here: http://eid.belgium.be/en/navigation/12000/index.html

Actually the software to read the cards is open-source and you can make a cheap entry check system with only a card-reader, an embedded system and a database server.

Re:Belgium has had it for ages

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you don't have an address? (i.e: are homeless)

Re:Costly work into its feasability before today..

[LordLucless]

Fixing Australia's net access is simple, it's just that none of the politicians have the balls for it. Strip Telstra off the infrastructure, and either spin it into a separate company or, preferrably, set it up as a government-run department that charges the telco's for access and is required to provide equal access across Australia.

While Telstra controls the infrastructure, and is compelled against its will to sell it on to its competitors, you're going to have a dysfunctional system. It might not solve all the woes overnight, but it would create and environment in which growth could happen.

Dismantling of ID card schemes

[snoggeramus]

I believe that England had an ID card scheme during the World wars 1 and 2, but dismantled it afterwards. There must be some compelling reasons for them to do this rather than keep maintaining a system that was already in place.

Does anyone know why the decision was made or what the shortcomings were? If we could learn from their experience than it may just help us to not be repeating their mistakes.

Re:Dismantling of ID card schemes

[Gandalf_the_Beardy]

See here... http://www.helium.com/tm/570058/unlike-countries-tradition-identity "A 54 year old dry cleaner named Clarence Willock was stopped by police while driving in London in December 1950. He was ordered to produce his ID card at his local police station within 48 hours. He refused point blank, saying he would not produce it at any police station at all. He was prosecuted and the case eventually went all the way to the High Court and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard. He remarked that the continuance of the ID card was an 'annoyance' and 'tended to turn law abiding subjects into law breakers'."

Re:Dismantling of ID card schemes

[Hognoxious]

Does anyone know why the decision was made or what the shortcomings were?

Because it had been introduced for a specific purpose, namely to catch spies, fifth-columnists and suchlike during the war, which was over by the time of the case in question.

ID cards are about centralising power

[Colin Smith]

Having a single index to all the myriad of commercial and government databases which contain information on individuals allows someone with access to those databases (e.g. the security services) to monitor pretty much in real time the movements of all citizens.

Once that power has been created, it's purely down to the definition of the word "terrorist".

The problem is not ID card themselves

[loopkin]

Most of Europe has ID cards, and nobody ever heard it's police states.
The thing is to emit cards, you need a database. So the card becomes a key to your entry in the ID database. So far, so good.
Now, if you use it also to pay your taxes, the same card has become a key to your tax records and earnings. The same if you use it for your medical insurance, and so on.
Here's the privacy breach: the "one card does all" scheme is really very bad, because it allows easily to retrieve personal data from different databases.

Take France. There is one of the most advanced computer-related privacy law (IT and Freedom Act):
- there is a "national" ID card, that is connected to nothing, except maybe the passports database
- there is a medical state insurance ID card (Vitale card), that is connected to nothing, except other medical insurances, and your record at your doctor's
- for the rest (taxes, ...), where you don't need an ID card, there aren't ID cards.
All the systems have different unique identification numbers ("national" ID card number, medical state insurance number, tax payer number, ...) and it is disallowed by the law (for anyone, including the state), to make a database that references all those id numbers.
So where's the problem there ? (except that it's for sure more expensive that having a "one card does all", but privacy has its price).

Re:The problem is not ID card themselves

[infernalman7]

The funny thing is that we, in Thailand, have these RFID cards which hold every information including names, DOB, signature, finger prints... but the thing is we never have to use it. The main use is just actually to identify yourself before going in to bars or buy alcohols or when election. The most common method to use is actually "photocopying". The RFID is never used outside of Bangkok. But I guess it would be different if this kind of card is used in more developed countries.

Re:The problem is not ID card themselves

[ingeburgerd]

Actually, I think many European countries are very much "police states" compared to Australia or North America. In the supposedly liberal Netherlands, police can stop anyone for 'preventief fouilleren' (preventive search) without any probable cause; in practice this is mostly used to harrass ethnic minorities. Anyone over the age of 14 who is not carrying an ID card can be fined or arrested. One of the victims of the Schiphol fire was a Bulgarian tourist who was picked up for not carrying his passport while shopping (http://thevoiceforum.org/node/390.) The U.S. RealID act standardizes the look of state-issued cards and requires them all to contain certain information, but it doesn't require anyone to carry or present it at particular times.

Similarly, the extension of telephone logs to the NSA by the major telephone companies without specific judicial warrants was a major scandal in America and ultimately held (by the Supreme Court of the United States, the ultimate arbiter) to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In Europe, the free extension of telephone and email data to law enforcement agencies is actually /required/ by the EU Directive on Mandatory Retention of Telecommunications Data (http://epic.org/privacy/intl/data_retention.html). The system that guarantees the rights of U.S. citizens can occasionally be frustrating, particularly because it can take years for a case to work its way through the court system. But it's still miles ahead of those countries that don't even have a written constitution (United Kingdom), supreme court with a power of judicial review (Netherlands), or clear constitutional statements of individual liberty (Italy).

The historical ability of European countries to resist fascism or populism is pretty checkered; I encourage you to pay a little more attention to the world around you.

Re:The problem is not ID card themselves

[ingeburgerd]

...but, you'd rather just mark a statement of fact as a Troll. Check.

Re:The problem is not ID card themselves

[JimBobJoe]

Most of Europe has ID cards, and nobody ever heard it's police states.

Arguably you went ahead and answered your own question. Many European nations have ID cards (either single purpose--like the French medical, or multi-purpose) but the purposes they serve are small time bureaucratic matters--things which are achieved in other nations without ID cards.

If it would be rather easy to get rid of the ID card, then you really don't have one in the full sense of the term.

Aussies may want to support REAL ID

[PHAEDRU5]

According to Wikipedia:

Under the REAL ID Act, nationals of Australia are eligible to receive a special E-3 visa. This provision was the result of negotiations between the two countries that also led to the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement which came into force on January 1, 2005.

Re:Aussies may want to support REAL ID

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because we all want to get into an even more shithouse country...

USians, what utter egotistical retards.

Re:Aussies may want to support REAL ID

[Anonymous Coward]

Hay yeah the positives of about 10% of Australians getting a visa into the United States is totally a bonus and totally outweighs all the negatives. Thumbs up OP!

Enough, actually

[WeirdJohn]

DISCLAIMER: I am an Access Card Taskforce member

It's been an interesting ride.

To begin with we had the standard 'moving target with secret agenda'.

Then we had a whole bunch of clueless vendors who were each trying to tie the country up into their own foreign-controlled solution ('the mechanism and algorithms for encryption are not detailed here for obvious reasons' Yeah right - like your particular crypto card ain't worth shit and you don't want anyone to know about the technical details of your patent-applied-for 31tor system. I kid you not gentle readers.)

Then we had all the 'Smart Card Smart Card Yeah Yeah Yeah!!' people who didn't understand that you still have to implement solutions, having a CPU card doesn't automagically make things happen just because you want them to be so.

The original concept for the card was a pretty good idea - replace 26 other cards with a single card to simplify the access to Government services. As planned it would not work as an ID card as there was to be no information printed on the card to identify you other than your name. This also made the card completely impractical. For example, tho card was going to simplify concession access to public transport. The catch was that the driver had no way of telling from the face of the card whether tho]e cardholder was eligible for concession fares. This meant that every bus, taxi, tram and ferry in Oz needed a WiFi enabled reader, and that every passenger using their card enter their PIN into a reader as they entered the bus (etc). This was clearly not going to save time, as most of the elderly that would use buses would do that slowly.

The finals hurdle we had was the previous Government trying to sneak RealID type facilities into the card. Fortunately several members crossed the floor, and those amendments never got up.

I got the impression that Prof Fels was not going to let the card get through unless he was happy with our work, and he very early in the process seemed to realise that we could easily come up with something very bad for Oz. I have the utmost respect for the man now that I've worked with him.

reading comprehension

[fmobus]

oh snap, can't you read the very article you linked?

Personalausweis (German Wikipedia): It is compulsory at age 16 to possess either a "Personalausweis" or a passport, but not to carry it. While police officers and some other officials have a right to demand to see one of those documents, the law does not state that one is obliged to submit the document at that very moment. Fines may only be applied if an identity card or passport is not possessed at all, if the document is expired or if one explicitly refuses to show ID to the police. If one is unable to produce an ID card or passport (or any other form of credible identification) during a police control, one can (in theory) be brought to the next police post and detained for max. 12 hours, or until positive identification is possible. However, this measure is only applied if the police have reasonable grounds to believe the person detained has committed an offense.

As a matter of fact, I tell ya an anecdote: a female brazilian was enjoying Köln's carnival with a pack of other brazilian female friends. As usual, girls have no space left in their clothing (i.e. no pockets) for wallets or such, so one of them had a purse and carried everyone else's IDs (not a wise decision, but anyway). During the usual mess of Köln's carnival, she begun hanging out with some guys and lost herself of the other girls. She decided to stick around with the guys, and they went for another neighborhood for more party. In the end, she had to return to downtown and risked taking the train without a valid ticket. Of course, Murphy does not sleep even in carnival and she was busted by ticket control. Trouble was, she had no money, no credit cards, no valid IDs and had committed an offense. But see, Germany is a country where people trust each other... she explained her situation, informed her name and received the fine by mail one week later.

As a rule, when I lived in Germany, as a resident foreigner, I never brought my passport along when in town. I only carried when needed (open bank account and the like) or when traveling. Most people do the same.

Do us a favour....

[mormop]

Can you get your man Rudd to phone Gordon Brown and talk some sense into him please. Either that or we'll do you a swap but I don't think you'd be that stupid.

Wrong problem

[Anonymous Coward]

ID cards solve the wrong problem. There is no problem with people who have an ID card, there is no problem with people who have no ID card (though they may not get serviced).

The problem is those that have several ID cards (or several IDs).

They get several payouts of benefits and hide behind different IDs. They can 'prove' they are someone else and avoid liability.

Giving everyone ID cards does not solve that problem, in fact it probably makes it easier to hide behind a false one.

Data Matching

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/search?q=data+matching+site%3A.gov.au

Re:Data Matching

[frsmith]

We call it Data Mining here in the UK.
Same thing.
You trawl a database and link different tables building a new view of the data.
Great for bored police/Gov officials.
In tens years you'll have this:



Year 2017

person 1 enters shopping mall

Quango sponsored system knows he earns only £12,000 per annum and is overdrawn on his bank account
Security are informed and subject is followed so that he/she leaves
(assumed potential shoplifter as it's shown that most people on a low wage shoplift at some point)
Hey this system works!!

Driving into London now costs £30.00 per day (keeps the great unwashed out and if you pay £40,000 for a car
you don't want to be sat behind some oik in a transit van!!
Ps you can't get insurance anyway as they know your family have a history of heart problems so no car for you, ever!

Na this wont happen!! people will rise up and stop it!
bob
Don't read my Sig!

Parent marked as troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Parent post is straightforward and sensible. Who marked it Troll? Weird!

These days you have to justify why the government leaves you any privacy at all, as if they naturally own you and your "rights". Clearly it should be the other way round: the government should know nothing about you except the minimum it needs to function. I'd say that's a lot less than they keep wanting to store in their intrusive databases!

Re:fuck slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I did once. Turned out to just be a dirty white man. is there any other kind?

National ID is still alive in US

[Anonymous Coward]

Oz may have stopped the national ID card but the US is still going forward. National ID is yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like America Deceived (book) from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this country.