wouldn't the world be a better place?

pollie corruption and incompetence exposed!

commercial rip-offs exposed!

personal hypocrisies exposed!

can't think of any downside, although there would be a transition period in which we all would have to extend our tolerance.

so, are you willing to bare all, and live in a society in which you know everyone's secrets?

Interesting question, Demos, but first you need to determine what is a "secret".

Try this one for size.

Last week's Economist carried an article on the potential impact of gene testing on the insurance industry.

http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=348960&story_id=9679893

It points out that very soon, you will be able to arrange your own gene sequencing for a few hundred dollars. Benefit? Greater understanding of your genetic propensity to a particular ailment.

If you do this, and then decide to insure yourself (perhaps, against the very disease to which you are prone), would you be obliged to disclose this information to the insurance company?

Or is it secret?

If you then claim against the policy, would the insurance company cite your withholding this information as a reason to withhold any benefit?

And if they asked you, as a prerequisite to writing the policy in the first place, to undertake a gene sequencing process, would you refuse on the grounds of secrecy?

One man's secret is another man's freedom of information.

thx for participating, per.

i believe in open government and open commerce. most secrets involve immoral acts. i'd give up personal privacy in a flash to get this public information.

keeping personal infirmities a secret is cheating, just as secret treaties committing nations to war are cheating, or cartel price setting is cheating, both on a grander scale.

an open world would be a better place, and we'll have it as soon as the lion and lamb get together for a dance party.

more realistic, tho', is to demand open government. it's our money, we think, so we should know how they're gonna spend it. in advance.

Ah, DEMOS, thanks for opening Pandora's Box. You know not what you ask, or do you?

And here was I, thinking "what possible use is this topic - just more opportunity for more of the same triteness that we all have to put up with from DEMOS; all complaint or reproof, but no solution". How wrong could I have been!

I've always had a seat-of-the-pants feeling that many privacy issues have been advanced for reasons other than genuine concern for really personal privacy for individuals. For example, are you aware that so-called 'privacy concerns' have been advanced as one of the reasons for no longer printing the electoral rolls as public documents, and as such documents, making them available for purchase by any member of the public? The last printed electoral rolls available to the public, and for purchase, were those printed in 1982.

For heaven's sake, what sort of information has ever been in an electoral roll that was not by nature very public? An adult person's name? That person's sex? Their occupation? Their residential address? From memory that is about it, although perhaps there may have been some other information, like an electoral roll number for the particular name entry, just as a precaution against confusion between persons with very similar names.

Can I be really heretical here? I understand the Commonwealth legislation establishing the Privacy Commission was brought in in 1988. Could it have been that the Privacy Commission and its associated legislation was created in order to shroud what should have been set in concrete in full public view, in a collection of printed Divisional electoral rolls, rolls frequently reviewed and reprinted between elections? Could the real role, unbeknown to participants of course, of the Privacy Commission, and privacy legislation generally, have been to facilitate enrolment based electoral fraud throughout Australia?

Could it be that the Lion and the Lamb have been together for a very long while already, although perhaps resting between dances for extended periods? Is the tempo of the music now picking up a little?