Is there any way a mere mortal will know what the micro chip will record, or do we just take the word of honest John, of children overboard fame.

Mylakhrion,

The apparent double standard with respect to privacy of personal information may be even more stark, and indeed more sinister, than you have indicated.

Over the last twenty years or so, privacy concerns have been advanced as one of the reasons for not printing electoral rolls, historically documents available to, and for purchase by, the general public. These printed electoral rolls were mostly produced at around the middle of the life of a Commonwealth parliament, and constituted a form of insurance against enrolment based electoral impropriety. The safeguard existed in the availability, rather than in the restriction, of such information to the public.

The last Commonwealth 'mid-term' electoral roll was printed in 1982.

Let me be quite clear. I am not talking about the extremely limited distribution printed 'reference rolls' available only to members and Senators containing the names of electors as at the LAST general elections, nor to the tightly controlled printed certified lists actually used in polling places to mark off vote claims on election day. I am talking about the essentially unalterable, widely distributed, printed 'mid-term' rolls which many fondly, but mistakenly, believe are still held in Post Offices and Court Houses across the nation.

You now seem to be telling us that information of potentially great importance to the general public is available on a privileged basis (and format?) only to political parties. Can you provide specific examples of the sort of use of personal information by political parties that has been exempted from the provisions of the privacy legislation?

What's the betting that, even if this 'Access' card is foist upon us, it certainly WONT be demanded to be presented when the adult citizens amongst us (compulsorily) turn up to vote on election days! Its one redeeming feature, its potential to prevent easy impersonation at vote claim, if the history of the 1987 double dissolution Federal elections on this very issue is anything to go by, will remain unrealized.

Rest easy. Either the 'Access Card' will pass into oblivion, or we will be getting non-compulsory voting very soon!

I think Autralians give up their personal information far too easily,

Why do we have to give our name and address when we purchase tickets to tonight's performance at our local regional performing arts centre?

Why do I need to give my date of birth and gender when I enter a competition? Is an astrologer going to put a hex on me.

Why do I need to tell Optus or Citylink my date of birth before they will answer a generalised query or send me information?

Why can't we take shampoo on flights to the US when 16 year old boys can board planes in Los Angeles with 2 samurai swords? Are we a tad too sensitive?

All volunteers for the Commonwealth Games were subjected to police checks, were searched before entry into every building and venue - sometimes 8 times a day. The searchers were sometimes the Army - thats OK but often the searchers were Indians who didn't understand Melbourne English who were easily bribed by food and embarassed to be searching their elders. The journalists nicknamed the Indian security guards "Al Quaeda". Indians were hired from Delhi because there were not enoough trained security guards available for the 6 weeks of Commonwealth Games duty. An Australian security guard has to be a certain size, have passed a TAFE security course and police check. The Indians did not have anything like similar physical stature, qualifications or experience.
In fact security at the Commonwealth Games was toned down because initially access to the venue was for named personnel for a specified shift starting at a particular time - late comers not admitted. When the lists were not printed for the start of shift on day 2 that system was dispensed with.

Any one who has had unauthorised transactions on their credit card or had their wallet stolen knows just how difficult it is to establish that you didn't spend the money or leave your PIN with your card? Banks are a lot more customer focussed than CENTRELINK officers determined to save the government surplus from low lifes like you!

Forrest

The point I was making was in regards to how personal information is kept- not necessarily what information they have access to.

Under the Australian privacy act, organizations have to comply with 11 principles (see http://www.privacy.gov.au/publications/ipps.html). These cover things like having to justify why you have the information; whether or not a citizen can request what details you do have; and making processes available for allowing citizens to correct the information.

According to the briefing we had (and I'll freely admit that it was a few years ago and things might have changed), with cross-floor support and against the advice of the privacy commissioner, the Fed Govt exempted political parties from having to comply with these regulations.

So, in essence, political parties can amass any information on you, regardless of their need for such information, they do not have to disclose that they have it, you can't demand that they show you said information and how they keep it and update it is their business.

Nice case of feather-bedding if you ask me. Returning to my point of before, if they care so little for personal privacy that they can justify exempting themselves from legislation, how can we possibly trust them when they say that the Access card will not be used to their own ends.

What concerns me about this card is that there is no technological limitation to the identification uses it can be put to- there are only legislative limits. And as Australia has no firm document protecting our civil liberties (such as a Bill of Rights) then we don’t seem to have much protection from government abuse.

GW- just because data/identity theft exists, I don’t see why we should be making things easier by consolidating all our information into a single document. At least now, a thief needs multiple documents to steal my identity- not just one

And, after a flood of Access Card forgeries by criminal organisations, and privateers, the Govt will tell us that the SMART Card is to easily lost/stole/forged and will want to bring in a system currently available internationally - a painless air injection under the skin, depositing a silicon chip with all our personal info - it has been available in the USA for well over a decade - at 24 hr medical clinics.

Strangely though, it can ONLY be applied to the back of the right hand, and includes our very own personal bar code - the system that uses the "0110" binary code for the number 6. ie one "0110" at each end to switch the scanner on or off and one in the middle, as we see on most goods we purchase today. (ie the long strokes at both ends and in the middle of most barcodes)

Why "0110" - well it cannot be mistaken by the barcode scanner as it reads "0110" either way round, as well as upside down and inside out - simple! "666" - the number of a man by which no one will be able to buy or sell without the "mark." It may well be later than we think !

Yeah, you can laugh at me, but I know !

It is not hard to build up a false identity. It was a lot easier 30 years or more ago but it can still be done. If you change your place of employment regularly spurious tax file numbers will allow you to collect centre Link benefits while working but you must keep moving or be in a position where you can use another identity. A scam that troubles me is where casual labour uses the tax file number of a contractor. The contractor supplies labour for say $20/hour but pays the labour $12/hour. The casual labour is happy as they can stay below the horizon or continue to collect Centre Link benefits.