I guess a single ID card would indeed rescue us from fumbling in bags for miscellaneous documentation (while simultaneously talking on the mobile, organizing an MP3 player and checking the kids).

However, convenience is a pathway to hell. Perhaps an embedded chip in your arm that you wave over a scanner is an even more “convenient” solution? We could create a Bill of Rights to make sure no one ever does anything bad to chipped citizens.

The point is the ID Card is not just a card – it is a system. All systems are only neutral on paper. Systems are “enlivened” through the exercise of power – especially systems of control, and the ID Card is a system of control (albeit a very convenient one). Bills of Rights only have sway in Courts. Otherwise, control is generally exercised in ways obfuscated to the local population. This is not paranoia; it is simply standard practice in all beurocratic States, including Australia.

I am suspicious of the Card simply because I don’t know what it might lead to. But new futures are being opened up by this idea – unsettling ones that inevitably make you uncomfortable and start wishing for a Bill of Rights. What we all know is the classic nature of power – its tendencies, its histories. The ID Card is an icon of such histories – and utopia is not yet upon us.

If there is to be a debate on the National ID card, then what type of debate. A debate in parliament, or on TV (sigh). A public inquiry (extra sigh). Since 1998 the government has not responded on time to 62 public inquiries held in the House of Representatives, and given no reply to 50%. Out of 137 Senate inquiries, it has responded on time to only 4, and not responded to 91.

This means that the government does whatever it wants, and could not care less about the views of the public. There has been nothing but lies, half truths, spin, propaganda, and back flips from this government, and there is every reason to believe that they will misuse the National ID card and its associated centralised information system, so as to entrench themselves into power for as long as possible.

A national ID card means that a person is in greater danger from their own government, as their government can simply take that card off them, and then wipe them from their computer files, and that person is non-existent. They are null and void. And millions of people have had their door kicked down in the middle of the night, taken away and never heard of again.

Keeping many documents to prove you actually exist is a safety measure all people should be taking.

A Bill of Rights means little, as a government can over ride it. It can declare the country at “war”, and then wipe legislation protecting the individual. This was done by Bush declaring that the US was in a “war on terrorism” and then introducing the Patriot Act, which wiped away so many rights of the individual.

“Just 45 days after the September 11 attacks, with virtually no debate, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act. … by giving the government the power to access to your medical records, tax records, information about the books you buy or borrow without probable cause, and the power to break into your home and conduct secret searches without telling you for weeks, months, or indefinitely.” http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207

No Greg,first of all we have a "Bill of Responsibilities",that will enable us to nail many of these sleazy money grubbing lawyers.

We could also nail a few of our corporate crooks and perhaps public servants who generate red tape and punish private enterprise with insane work place regulations.

Fear of litigation has sent the Public service comatose with conflicting rules and regulations.It is impossible for private enterprise to conform legally to the plethora confusing regulation.

When we get the lawyers under control, then we will consider a "Bill of Rights".

Right on, Arjay.

Australia needs an ID card, and even the critics of such a card admit that being able to prove identity is a big plus.

But the only thing a Bill of Rights would do for Australia, would be to create a society who's courts were clogged by people with creative interpretations of their "Rights", and where no lawyer would live in poverty.

ARJAY What is difference between a "Bill of Rights" and a "Bill of Responsibilities"? How come one is pointless and the other a "great idea"? How come you can enforce one and not the other? A Bill of Rights is to protect citiizens. To my understanding being a citiizen carries with it a social contract which is pretty well based on Greek ideas, British law and our Christian and multi-cultural heritage. Put simply the Golden Rule is kind of a universal truth that guides most people and common sense and a sense of fair play and justice usually keeps us in line. If we don't the law comes a knocking and we go before the courts. Those laws are made to further democratic principles, protect property and people's safety and so on. So why not apply this process to governments with a Bill of Rights. We already have our process to ensure we behave responsibly-people will always push the boundaries and disagree on what is responsible but at heart Australians are a fairly decent mob and do these things for good reasons. We know what the universal truths are and these truths and a fairly even power base seem to govern us in our day to day lives, but in the political arena it all goes out the door and minorities (and majorities) have zero power or recourse. That needs fixing.

Redneck,
You seem to want a national ID card, and from other forums, you seem to like people such as Saddam Hussein. But like most dictators, Saddam Hussein had his “own” spy agencies to collect information on members of the public, he had his “own” purges of his “own” political party, killed members of his “own” ministry, and even his “own” family. All was done to gain and maintain his “own” power.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/animalfarm/10/

Rancitas,
A Bill of Rights is not greatly tangible, and can be easily overridden by some despot that gets into power. All they have to do is say that the country is at war and there is a need to safeguard the “national interest”. This will always override the rights of the individual. They can even invent a war, or create a war. However this “national interest” normally becomes the “self-interest” of that despot.

Most people in government are power hungry, and the more power they get, the more they want. They become insatiable for information on the public, so as to exercise greater and greater power over the public. Millions of people in many different countries have found this out, many of whom now reside in mass graves.

A country can have a Bill of Rights, but not a National ID card system at the same time. The National ID card system (and its associated spy agencies and centralised information systems) will override any Bill of Rights.

Just like Mary Poppins Greg advocates a spoonfull of sugar to help the medecine go down, but Greg's sugar is artifical with no nutrition at all. There is no reason to link a Bill of Rights with a national ID card - such a Bill would offer no more protection than that which obviously be enshrined in the ID card legislation.

Everytime a major rights issue comes up, be it ID cards, mandatory detention, anti-terror laws, censorship etc someone comes out to say if only we had a Bill of Rights we would all be safe. Well the UK,US and Zimbabwe all have Bills of Rights, so did Communist Russia and Nazi Germany. I know my rights are safer here than in any of those famous Bill of Rights fearing nations. Lets face it, legislation is an imperfect tool that is easily manipulated. Our only real protection comes from our politicians, our judicial system, and our own vigilance and participation.

Rancitas,you have answered you own question.We have no use for a Bill of Anything.It just gives the Lawyers more leverage.

Most of us carry with us many forms of ID cards, Medicare, Licence, Bankcard etc all recognised by signature. I could see that if one card contained all this plus Passport, Tax file Number and personal information like blood type, finger print, iris recognition etc it would make it more difficult to steal identity.

I am not happy with a Bill of Rights, because to define a right is to exclude the rights of some. This is a lawers dream - to define if a right has been denied. No Bill of Rights!

Wake up Australia!! The Australia Card (minus the photo.) is already law. The legislation was passed under the soothing name of "the upgraded tax file number" thanks to the vote of the then Shadow Treasurer, by name J. Howard. Since then we have seen the ABN number legislation and lastly the diabolical Privacy Act (aka the Publicity Act) - it's no longer possible for the private citizen to ring any business contact without being interrogated (prove your identity!) and recorded. The next steps can be foreseen:
• Street police randomly checking your reasons for not being within your Registered Postcode.
• Street police randomly checking your permit to visit your local milk bar.
• The 'National Tattoo" legislation. ("It's not an offence to refuse to tattoo your new infant, however we are obliged to euthanase said infant")
• The "National Radio Transmitter implant" legislation.

George Orwell must be turning in his grave - shades of "1984" !!.

My concern with a Bill of Rights is that I fear it could be used as an assault on our liberty.

If it guarantees so called "negative rights" such as:-

* Freedom of speech
* Freedom of association
etc

then it could be a good thing. However I worry that any serious debate would get hijacked by the left who would want it to provide so called "positive rights" such as:-

* Right to a job
* Right to education
* Right to health care
etc

These may be nice things but in my view they do not belong in a Bill of Rights or in a national constitution. And they create obligations not freedom.

Rather than a Bill of Rights I would propose we have a constitution amendement that makes specific a list of "Limits to Government Power". That way there would be no mistake that the intend was to restrict government rather than to enable or empower it

I think that we need neither an ID card nor a Bill of Rights - indeed, Barns' linking of the two concepts is in itself an argument against both.

Already we are seeing the rapid erosion of many of the rights we assume we have under Australian Common Law - stuff like freedom of association, the ability to travel on public transport unmolested by cops, sniffer dogs or wannabe cops (security or transport goons), or even to keep our shoes on at airports.

The blame for the increase in national paranoia that is the cover for these outrageous State intrusions into our individual liberties must be laid fairly and squarely at the feet of the Howard government, which has cynically deployed 'terrorism' and the bullsh*t 'war' against it since taking back the racist baton from Hanson's populist xenophobic party a few years ago.

I can hear the echo of jackboots in the streets of our cities already, accompanied by the snarls of police dogs and the despairing whimpers of civil libertarians. Lest we forget, eh?

The only tangible thing that will come out of a bill of rights is a big fat bill for the taxpayer. But l suppose it will create a lot of jobs for paper shuffling ineffectual hacks.

USA has a bill of rights and doesnt 'guarantee' people anything other than another bunch of words, obligations, rights and promises for the politicians and govt beauru-rats to ignore and trample. For example, its 'illegal' for the US govt to spy on its own citizens, so instead it enters into intelligence sharing treaties with other countries, like Canada, where they spy on each others' citizens and then exchange the dossiers. They're sharing of course and its good to share.

As usual, its more important for those in power to be seen to be doing something (anything) rather than actually get substantive things done.

How does another piece of plastic do anything other than give the nefarious another avenue for manipulation and corruption? The only people who an ID card will keep in line are the honest generality. They are honest so they dont need to be monitored anyway. If you have got nothing to hide, then why does anyone need to look. On the other hand, the criminals, er, dont care about laws, rights and IDs, afterall they're crims. Gun 'reform' hasn't stopped violent criminals from having guns.

With 5-10k in computer hardware and software one can produce all the official ID desired. Wont work if a public servant checks against their computer, but likely quite useful in the other 99% of peoples' interactions. Government can build bigger mouse traps and nature will create better mice.

Maybe we could first introduce an ID card, then engineer a big scandal regarding their arcane security technology after, lets say, terrorists found with conterfeit cards who just blew something up. Then we could start going on about how the only acceptable security is biometrics and that could be incorporated into the cards. Eventually on the path to a society that is a cross between 1984, Brave New World, Gattaga and Atlas Shrugged. Now thats a world l would love to live in. Actually just fill my viens with Soma and plug me in... this big bad scarey world with a boggie man around every corner is just too hard to deal with, sans bi-weekly psychotherapy and a 5 repeat script for Prozac.

ps. greg barnes... we dont have a 10 point system of ID, its 100 points and its only used for opening bank accounts not monitoring, interfering with and controlling a whole nation of people.

The Terrorists Have Won

Several commentators have been warning over the last few weeks that we need to be careful that we don’t effectively destroy our own free society in the process of making it ‘safe’ from terrorism …. shades of the Vietnam War era when a village could be ‘saved’ by destroying it.
Well, what do you know. We now have a situation where the British Police can run down, capture, and then shoot dead an unarmed man because they are “ suspicious” that he had link to the bombers …. he was obviously a foreigner, and he was wearing the wrong clothes, what more do you need. Our leading weekend newspaper gloats over the death on its front page – I mean, they shot him dead, so he must have been guilty – right!
The fact that the poor bastard now turns out to be a Brazilian, with no links to the bombing, is almost irrelevant. What if he did have links, what if he played in the same cricket team, even lived in the same house…… is that enough to reason to gun him down in cold blood. This is a very slippery slope we are heading down …. I’m sure there will be all the usual expressions of regret, enquiries etc etc . When those three undercover police officers are arrested and tried for murder, I will believe that maybe we haven’t lost the game.

Very concerning times we live, and those who have been put in a situation outside the usual and normal lives we live and have had to deal with a government body and experienced 'government process' can tell, which I think effectively all of us at some stage will experience, to how it is 'Not working'. Tax office, family court, health and school system as examples (The gst turn out to be a huge money spinner for the government, and we have effectively not seen the price drops promised).

So, the question has been raised, is the 'government' acutualy a common people representative (and whom anyone of us may take a place in for a period) whose purpose is to effectively and quickly deal with any matter that affects community stability harmony and happiness, or is it now a corrupted beast beyond recognition to its original purpose and become the fundamental cause of deceitfully disrupting community for more power. Lot of points to support the later but we common people are prevented from accessing the information needed to clearly determine this. I say ID card is a bad idea and lots of things need fixing first.

So, where do we go from here...

Sam
Ps~Hard to know from the nicknames, but I have not seen a female reply, and curious to what their point of view on this is.

To Sam said - The opinions of women will be as many and varied as those of men. Women are not one single homogenous group. There is a female poster or two on this thread.

For me I agree with Timkins and Garra. I suspect that we have a federal government that is tightening control over the citizens of this small nation - and control can always be abused.

Trinity,
Beg to differ here, there are fundamental differences between the way women group together, to the way men group. Women naturally group together giving them better chance at survival, then sought out the pecking order and what the general group social behaviour is, before expressing individual identities from within it, Hence womens opinions have a general common form (they have to otherwise risk attack from their own and benefit is it allows them to form 'armies' like no other).
Men start with individual identities and by getting to know other individual men start grouping. Hence mens opinions are in a general sence more varied.
But this is digressing from the article, Just a bit of depth psychosocial information.

Sam

We currently carry many ID cards all of which are issued by others and owned by someone else like our driver’s license, our passport, our credit cards, our Tatts Lotto card, our club membership cards etc.

We can solve the citizen's problem the national ID card is meant to solve by having a universal ID card that we own. This would have our photograph, our name, our signature and would contain embedded in it many unique numbers.

That is our ID card does not have a single identifying number but many numbers. We register different numbers with different organisations and each number represents a relationship with a different organisation (this is what we already do but with different cards) We have different numbers for the tax department, for the bank, for immigration etc. We would never physically see any number as it would be very large and would be encrypted.

Instead of every organisation issuing a card we allocate one of our numbers to them. If they have already given us a number we map one of our numbers to their number.

By having different numbers for different organisations we prevent the card number being used to collate information about us and remove the major privacy issue with ID cards while still serving the main purpose of an identity card which is to make it simpler for us to identify ourselves when needed.

It would be self funding because we would buy it and own it as it potentially replaces all the cards we now carry.

Is it technically possible? Yes. All the technology to make it happen exists today and is in common use.

Is it legislatively possible? Yes. The system can operate within existing laws including the privacy laws.

Will it happen? Yes. It solves the identity card problem without impinging on our privacy.

Why do it when we can do it with lots of cards? We do it because OUR card can also be used to ask governments and other organisations to tell US what information they have on us.

Fickle Pickle,
This concept is interesting, but it does not overcome the problem of what to do if the card becomes lost, or is stolen, or is purposely taken from someone.

How can you prove that you exist, or that you are not an alien, when everything is tied up in a single card, which has non-identifiable encrypted numbers or bar codes that can’t be read by a person. There are some countries where the card has become an “entitlement card” rather than an “identity card”. So if you are a good boy and do what we want, we will let you keep your card, and keep your identity.

It may also not overcome the problem of a government collecting information on someone, but not telling them, or collecting more and more information in time (ie “information creep”). Under legislation in some countries, a government can already collect information on someone, but is not obliged to tell them what information they are collecting (Bill of Rights or not).

The technology is also moving towards chips being built into the cards, including positioning chips, which basically means that physical tracking of any individual at any time will become possible. This may be “technology creep” as well as “information creep”, but eventually someone becomes a dot on the map and a database file, with minimal human value (see Menezes in the UK - 5 shots to the head, and only a “sorry” issued.

Timkins all good questions and there are solutions. Remember that you OWN the card. The card in fact is a copy of an electronic version that you also own that is on the Internet. As you own it you can also "destroy" it if you wish. You destroy it by telling all the people who have an association with you through the card that the old one is no longer to be used and here is the new one. As soon as the person who has stolen the card tried to use it then they would find it did not work. Remember how people will use the card - it will be much like an EFTPOS machine and have to be verified.

The point is that everything is not tied up in the single card or in a single number. I have not gone into the details of how it works but essentially the card is a copy of an electronic identity that YOU own and you keep securely and safely and privately on the Internet. To steal your identity they will have to steal your online identity and that is very very difficult.

Also remember that the card is voluntary and is not owned by the government or any other organisation. You do not have to own one or use it and you will only do so if you are confident about its security.

I should at this stage disclose that we are working on a system to implement the electronic identity part. The card is an "emergent property" of the system. There are a lot more issues about keeping your data secure and private but we have both technical and social solutions.

Thanks for the questions and anymore you may have because we need to understand the difficulties. You can read more at www.edentiti.com

Sam said

I am of the impression that you think that women are more likely to favour an ID card because of the 'group mentality' you referred to in your post. If I have interpreted you incorrectly then please disabuse me.

I believe you will find a similar diversity of opinion regarding the ID card and Bill of Rights as you would among men. We are not clones. We are individuals just like men. The marked difference between men and women is our ability to communicate our experiences to one another and having been the primary care giver in times past this was a necessary survival tactic. However, our communal strategies don't proceed to strong and organised groups - if women were able to form such strong groups we would rule this world and we most certainly do not.

I apologise for bringing gender politics into this thread. But I am astounded that a man can make pronouncements about female behaviour and then get defensive if challenged - by a woman no less.

Trinity - you go gurrl. Below is another womyn's opinion.

Below is part of an article from the Australian.

"The depth of personal information held by the Government has reached extraordinary levels, with the Tax Office keeping records of such details as religious affiliation and criminal convictions.
"Matching is inherently contrary to the privacy principle that (personal) information should only be used for the purpose it was collected," Australian Privacy Foundation spokesman Nigel Waters said.
The Attorney-General's Department says identity theft costs the Australian economy more than $1.1billion a year.
While the largest federal government data-matching program is covered by laws restricting the use of personal information, most activity is covered by less stringent voluntary guidelines administered by federal Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis. Ms Curtis was not available for comment yesterday.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16019185%255E2702,00.html

I believe that an ID card is just the thin edge of the wedge in terms of diminishing our democracy.

However, as the above article would indicate our personal details are already available for misuse. It is not a matter of whether you have anything to hide or not. It is a matter that personal information can be sold or used to misrepresent or discriminate against you. For example your religious affiliations, sexual orientation, gender, race, where you live, what school you attended etc are all aspects that can be used to stereotype you or cast aspersions. This is not fabrication because it has happened and is happening now.

I guess I am a glass half full person as I see technology giving us the power to protect ourselves. Rather than seeing technology as a way for us to be damaged by someone or some body misrepresenting us I see it as giving us the power to punish those who misrepresent.

If we know what matching is going on and if matching can ONLY be done legally with our permission then we are in control and we can protect ourselves by making it uneconomic for people to do other than preserve our privacy. What hurts us most is what we do not know and what others are saying about us particularly if it is incorrect.

We can never stop organisations who want to keep information about us collecting information any more than we can stop gossips from gossiping behind our backs. However, if we know what other people know about us, and if we have recourse to correcting incorrect information, and if we have recourse to purging their files of our information if they have no valid reason for holding it, and if we can prosecute those who use information about us in unacceptable ways, then we have more protection than the current situation where organisations mix and match without our knowledge. These are the areas we should be working on - not trying to prevent the accumulation of information as that is going to happen whether we like it or not, but in finding ways to know what is going on and finding wasy to protect us when misuse happens.

Our identity is like any other property. We want to use it but we want people to be punished if they steal it or any part of it for their advantage and our disadvantage.

A serious flaw with the proposed ID card system appears to have been overlooked.

Most of the chatter about this suits it's proponents but consider this;

The 'ID Card' is a de-facto license-to-inhabit,in this case Australia. Why do governments introduce licensing schemes? To allow them to excersise a high level of control over the licensee. Look at drivers licenses or toxic waste disposal, real estate agents...,whatever. Should any citizen come into dispute or conflict with any agency of government that agency will have the power to withdraw or limit the term of your license and therefore your access to; travel, bank accounts and potentially all social instutions. Perhaps there will be point scheme and at some point(When you have 10 points) you will experience a form of home detention when you lose your license for say 3 months...? These restrictions may be lifted when or if matters are settled (In who's favour?) This would certainly be a great convienience to governments (No more conpromising) but at a cost most informed people would regard as an unacceptable.

In the Netherlands, where a similar scheme has been in operation for a few years, the government has now experienced a windfall in revenue from fines imposed on people being out in public without their ID Cards. To evaluate the governments concern for people's welfare balanced against revenue collection just examine the conduct of the NSW government's dependence on the workingman's gameing loses.Consider also the enthusuasm for restrictive parking limits as opposed to the proper provision of public parking. Politicans are put into office by the public, they are funded by the public and therefore their highest duty is to the public. If they are unable to do this what are we paying them for?

Cassandro