Australia Mulling a Nationwide Vehicle-Tracking System

An anonymous reader writes "It seems that as political support for Australia's version of the national ID card is waning, the powers that be have found a far more effective way to catalog the populace. CrimTrac, an Australian government agency responsible for designing technical solutions to aid policing, is due to hand in a $2.2 million scoping study for the introduction of a nationwide automatic number plate recognition system (ANPR). It seems that as well as ANPR, the system will also collect images of drivers and passengers with high enough resolution for identification purposes. All ANPR data collected would be made available to participating agencies in real time, and retained for five years for future investigations."

Comments

Yes

[oodaloop]

If only we had more data available, we could stop all crime!

Australia Card?

[deniable]

From the summary: "support for Australia's version of the national ID card is waning." Um, what national ID card?

So what exactly is the Hawke government going to do now?

Re:Australia Card?

[a.ameri]

Mod parent up. The summary is (as usual) inflammatory and misinformed. There is no scheme, legislation or proposal in Australia or any of its states for a national ID card.

The closest it got to being implemented was in 1985 during the Hawke government's Australia Card bill. This was at the height of the Hawke Labor government's popularity, and it got the government into so much trouble and lost the government huge capital clout. Hawke dissolved the parliament and held new elections, but still was unable to pass the bill. Later on, a Royal Commission heavily criticised the idea and put the mater to rest. See this for more details.

ANPR is right now, a "scoping study". Australia is nowhere close to perfect, but it has strong civil institutions, and you can make sure that heads will roll and blood will spill if this gets anywhere close to being proposed as a bill. Since then the law has moved in the complete opposite direction. The Privacy Act (1988) specifically mentions that no unique identifier issued by a government agency or corporation can be used by another entity for the purpose of identification. In practice, this means things such as driver's license number, a Tax File Number (equivalent to U.S SSN), or the medicare number can not be used by any corporation or agency other than the one which issued it in the first place, for identification.

Right now, this is a classic example in Australia of the state vs. individual liberties, taught in any university course about identity and privacy. I've met many 'ordinary' (read: not politically active) people across all fields of society, from social workers to lawyers and IT managers, and even the newer generation who is too young to remember the debate first hand (like myself) is definitely acquainted with the subject and its implications. So, unless the poster somehow managed to time travel from 1985, "public support for national card in Australia is wanning" is like saying "public support for Hillary's health care bill is wanning" or "public support for president Nixon is wanning".

The issue did come to surface once again, after former Liberal (which here means Conservative) Prime Minister Howard made some comments about it in 2005 after the London bombings, but even then it was heavily frowned upon and both parties knew better than to include it into their agenda.

Australia is nowhere close to perfect, but it has strong civil institutions. This is a "scoping study". The moment the study is published, if it recommends anything remotely close to implementing CimTrack's ANPR, you can make sure that heads will roll and blood will spill in the electorate.

Re:Australia Card?

[rohan972]

The Privacy Act (1988) specifically mentions that no unique identifier issued by a government agency or corporation can be used by another entity for the purpose of identification. In practice, this means things such as driver's license number, a Tax File Number (equivalent to U.S SSN), or the medicare number can not be used by any corporation or agency other than the one which issued it in the first place, for identification.

Interesting theory, but your TFN is probably known by your employer, your bank, centrelink (social security), your superannuation fund as well as the tax office. Of course, you don't have to give it, you could just pay 46.5% tax instead. Now that's freedom of choice to keep your privacy! With the growth of the Family Tax Benefit and other centrelink payments a very large proportion of the population is on some form of government payment. Since many of them have the government take it from one hand as PAYG tax only to put it back in the other as FTB, there seems to be no purpose to it but to increase government control of the population and to force the people into a position where they are always reporting their activities, income and other personal details to the government.

Don't be fooled by the occasional head rolling and the rhetoric of liberty in this country. The liberty of the people is dependent on being able to thwart government power. We occasionally thwart the power of individual politicians, maybe even a party, but not of the government institutions themselves. The peoples power to thwart government is specific to the branch of government. For the legislative we have the power of elections, but the majority of voters don't seem to be able to understand economic theory, monetary policy, the nature of government and liberty or logic well enough to make a decision based on anything but propaganda. For the judicial we have jury trials but I find few and far between are the people who understand the concept of jury nullification, people think that jury trials are about finding the truth (which is partly right) but don't understand the importance of being able to dismiss unjust prosecutions. For the executive there is the right to bear arms and we gave it up.

All three of these citizen's powers were used in the forming of this country during the events surrounding the Eureka Stockade. The government was resisted by force, couldn't find juries to bring guilty verdicts on the rebels, and the leader was subsequently elected to the Legislative Assembly of Victoria. Can you honestly say you think anything remotely resembling these events could happen today? I think it would be almost impossible to find a jury that would find in favour of people on firearms charges because their cause was just. It seems likely that even the possession of (unlicensed) firearms would be enough to secure convictions, let alone firing of police, regardless of the cause. Even if you could find a jury to release them though, the thought that they could become elected representatives? Preposterous.

Australians in general are not the freedom loving people we once were, and the ones who are here are not present in sufficient numbers to have any real influence on an election. You can look forward to things getting worse. Just look at some of the comments on the linked article in favour of this.

Re:on-start service.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Help! I don't know where am I, but i see a kangaroo and the toilets are flushing backwords"

For those whose knowledge of Aussie plumbing is limited to that one episode of the Simpsons, Australian toilets do not flush backwards. The design they use does not produce any swirling motion at all.

Re:No ...

[magarity]

No, crime will stop when the second to last person dies.

Re:ANPR already in UK

[ijakings]

Yeh but thats counting all of the private entity Cameras. There seems to be a widespread myth these days that every camera you see everywhere is linked together. So that perhaps a mean with a white beard and an over exuberant use of visa vis can watch us 24/7.

A fraction of the cameras are owned and controlled by the government and even then, from the limited information ive obtained from watching crime programs, getting detailed information accross even county borders isnt easy.

Take off the tinfoil hat please.

Re:No ...

[EdIII]

No, crime will stop when the second to last person dies.

I don't know about that. When I am all alone some of things I do to myself are a crime too :)

Re:I'm all for this system

[jamesh]

I know you were kind of joking, but I think that would be a great test for any new law like this. Something to go in the constitution. Any politician voting to approve any new monitoring law has to make all data collected about them (and their family?) publicly available in as near to real time as possible for the duration of their term of office, and a few years afterward, just to make sure.

If the law gets in, the monitoring is only put in on a trial basis for (say) 6 months, after which the politicians are given the opportunity to change their mind about their vote (eg the law is put to vote again).

If any politician doesn't want to vote for such a law on that basis, then that's probably a pretty good indicator that the law is too intrusive.

Re:ANPR already in UK

[sentientbeing]

Ive spent the last few years working with IT departments at airports and other major networked UK sites providing cabling and telecom services. Ive been to many of the secret rooms and surveilance areas of these places.
Im not trying to disappoint the CCTV-Tinfoilhatters abroard in the US, but nobody sits in a room like Lex Luthor spying on individuals and following them about their business with camera. It is an extremely BORING pastime. The guys running these networks generally spend all their time releasing remote doors, monitoring queue lengths, opening car parking barriers and signing out keys for storerooms.

or reading The Sun.

Re:Welcome to the Global Village

[petes_PoV]

Of course, surveillance *can* be used by a police state, but it can be used against the state as well.

Not if the police state makes it unlawful for anyone but themselves to use surveillance. In the UK, you'll more than likely have your camera taken off you if the police spot you filming them.

Re:on-star service.

[electrictroy]

Even if Australians used American-made toilets (with swirling motion), they still wouldn't spin backwards. How water spins down a drain is related to the design of the unit, not the earth's rotation. (urban legend).

BACK TO ARTICLE:

"Only criminals need fear tracking of their cars," is the most common defense to this proposal. My response: "And what if the government makes travel a crime? Then we ALL become criminals." Why would government make travel a crime? Well besides the obvious case of dictatorship, there's also the possibility a government might outlaw travel for environmental reasons. Or because oil is scarce.

A person is not truly free unless he has the right to travel whereever he wishes without restraint or monitoring.

Re:No ...

[electrictroy]

I disagree. Anything you do to yourself, since nobody else is harmed, is not a crime.

The only reason certain "self" activities like masturbation, smoking dope, or committing suicide are outlawed is because we got a bunch of petit-dictators (aka control freaks) who want to control everybody else. There's no justifiable reason to outlaw these activities as long as the only person I am harming.... is myself.

"No person has a right to harm another. And that's all the government should restrain him." - Thomas Jefferson

Re:Welcome to the Global Village

[secondhand_Buddah]

The police in the UK already have the power to detain people arbitrarily. So that piece of the fascist puzzle is already in place for a gulag. All you need is some leader to take advantage of said legislation, but hey, by then its too late..
By the way, did you know that before the first world war, you could travel and live ANYWHERE in the world freely and without restriction? Passports were put in place to control the flow of people during the war. Guess what? The legislation was never revoked after the war. We just live with it, and it has got progressively More suppressing over the years. Do you really think governments have your interests at heart when it comes to personal freedoms?

Re:on-star service.

[electrictroy]

History shows that all governments eventually become tyrannical in nature. (For example Rome started as a Republic, devolved into an Imperium, and finally ended as a dictatorship.) More recently, we have our own President spying on us with the US PATRIOT Act giving him power to tap all phone conversations everywhere.

Why give some future tyrant the tools to abuse his power & track all travel? We should limit government power every chance we get, to guard against that future tyrant *before* he arrives on the scene.

Re:on-star service.

[aurispector]

Agreed. The whole idea is incredibly stupid. "CrimTrak"? If they know someone is a criminal, go to his house, his parent's house or his girlfriend's house. 95% of the time he'll be there. For the other 5%, we need panopticon video surveillance of the general population! It's obvious! How ever did we make it to 2008? The criminals should have killed us all by now without this technology!

Please, somebody, somewhere cut me a f*cking break and stop this stupidity.

Re:Countermeasures?

[TaoPhoenix]

"Jcr is a suspect for damaging government property, because the camera was working just fine as of 11:38:13 seconds and ceased to work at 11:38:15 after his vehicle passed."

Gang,

in its various incarnations including the rest of YRO, this is *the* signature theme of our century. It's gonna take something really culturally decisive to resolve this. Simple "low level" tricks will not quite work.

The reason why is that cumulatively, the ideas proposed so far have been logically inconsistent! Unfortunately, prosecuting attorneys seem to enjoy crushing people with logically inconsistent motivations.

I don't have the answers. All I know is that the macro problem is *really tough*.