Some of you may remember, amongst the fag-end brain farts of the Howard government, a program called the Access Card. This was supposed to magically cure welfare fraud and solve the IT problems of dozens of government departments by inflicting every Australian adult with something that looked like an ID card, contained all the information of an ID card, had onerous proof-of-identity requirements that were very much like an ID card, but was somehow not an ID card. Aside from the privacy implications of the enormous data registry behind the thing, the costs and benefits didn’t seem to stack up either.
But, according to a series of articles in Fin Review (behind their bloody paywall) over the past couple of days, a plan to rejig the federal government’s payments bureaucracy, possibly including smartcard technology, is formulating quietly in the various government departments. Joe Ludwig, Human Services Minister, has ruled out a compulsory smartcard, but in such a way as to leave plenty of wriggle room:
Human Services Minister Joe Ludwig, meanwhile, has ruled out any resurrection of the previous government’s controversial smartcard scheme.
Senator Ludwig said there would be no backflip on a promise not to have a smartcard: “We are committed to achieving best practice in the provision of government services, but we are not considering a compulsory identity card.”
But he said the Government was committed to policing and eliminating welfare fraud.
But then, of course, there’s voluntary and then there’s voluntary. How voluntary is a smartcard that, if you don’t possess it, will result in you jumping through massive administrative hoops to get your Medicare payments, for instance?
I suspect that the real reason the Access Card ended up the monster that it did was through the gradual attachment of dozens of agendas from stakeholders; each government department wanted the Access Card gravy train to overhaul its systems, the banks (whose cooperation is needed to streamline payments) wanted a system to reduce identity fraud, the federal law enforcement community was probably involved and saw a chance for a de-facto national ID card with a federally-controlled database, thus making it much easier for them to collect personal data.
Undoubtedly, there’s room to do a cleanup of the federal payments bureaucracy. But I won’t be half surprised if what eventually comes out of the process has had all manner of privacy-invading pieces of mission creep tacked on, whatever Joe Ludwig says now.
Interesting, Robert… was the “Access Card” ditched by the Razor Gang?
Nope, it was an election commitment, based on both the privacy and cost-effectiveness issues.
Thanks Robert. Fair enough on both grounds.
But I heard recently its ditching being trumpeted as a big money-saver. It may have been the Razorcrowd just doing some crowing… letting Kevin and the public know they’re making progress… ?
That’s strange. A day or two ago, on, I think the Today Show, in those things that ceawl across the bottom of the screen, there was one announcing the Rudd Government was going to adopt the Smartcard to prevent welfare fraud. Parhaps there was something on Nine MSN in the past few days?
I wonder if they’ll look at reasonable controls on what is stored, and learn from the eGovenment Transparency and Openness Award Winning Norwegian government’s MyPage (I’ve given the link to the English version, that provides a single spot through which “Norwegian citizens can also control information about them held by various public administrations”.
Actually, there was a little-known bit of legislation under Howard, the AusCheck that theoretically applied to transport workers but the legislation allowed extension to anyone who uses a telephone system, enters a government building, or receives a benefit (section 8(2) of the bill).
Once fully operational, AusCheck will also be able to manage other background checking schemes and minimise duplication of effort for individuals who need to apply for background checks for different purposes”.
When I went through the draft AusCheck bill, 8(2) sections got my attention, which 8.1.(c) was criticized in the report. I assume 8(2) got through, which allowed a full checking and id for (ignoring (a) through (d)
(e) purposes in respect of the granting of financial assistance to a State on such terms and conditions as the Parliament thinks fit; or
(f) purposes related to the executive power of the Commonwealth; or
(g) purposes related to the collection of statistics; or
(j) purposes related to trade and commerce:
(l) purposes in connection with a postal, telegraphic, telephonic or other like service…
(m) purposes related to the provision of allowances, pensions, child endowment, benefits or services…
(o) purposes related to matters incidental to the execution of any of the legislative powers of the Parliament or the executive power of the Commonwealth; or
(q) purposes related to any other matter in respect of which the Parliament has the power to make laws.
Piggybacking on AusCheck (which got support of Libs and Labor) with a new AccessCard allows substantial abuse, especially as Centrelink is still to be cleaned up and still gets bad report cards from the Audit Office, even if the criticism is between the lines.
Wasn’t it the Hawke/Keating government that first mooted the “Australia Card” - obviously the public servants in Canberra love dusting off that stupid proposal every now and again.
The question can be asked: what positive outcomes (from its perspective) can the government achieve with the SmartCard that can’t already be achieved through use of the tax file number?
6 David Rubie
Wasn’t it the Hawke/Keating government that first mooted the “Australia Card” - obviously the public servants in Canberra love dusting off that stupid proposal every now and again.
Yes, and Howard was (then) passionately opposed to it, indeed outraged that such a thing could even be contemplated.
How things change.
“The question can be asked: what positive outcomes (from its perspective) can the government achieve with the SmartCard that can’t already be achieved through use of the tax file number?”
Revenue raising when someone loses one and has to pay for a replacement?
Thanks for the technical detail, Dave Bath [5].
To my untrained eye, that looks like a VERY long list of “purposes”.
BTW, not sure he Acess Card was at the fag-end f the Howard Govt. It was well into serious planning by Feb 2007, I remember hearing a radio doco about it circa Jan 2007 (”Background Briefing”?). It had already accreted many planned functions by then, and some GPs thought it’d be useful to have the holder’s medical records on it [if she agreed]. Good for dementia sufferers etc.
Centralized data-banks are a point of weakness today. Far better look to open-source for a solution. The technology now exists for people to upload their info into encrypted data-banks that are then distributed ( like Freenet) with the help of massive new specialized encrypted remailers. You’re notified by email every-time your info is accessed (and the criminal exceptions could be required to have a quorum of say 12 netizens in good standing to show probable cause.)
A similar system is vital now for health records. I don’t want my health records kept in an insecure central location. P2P, PGP and a lively interest in avoiding the new STASI can light the way forward on this hot button issue.
“I don’t want my health records kept in an insecure central location”
Err, professor, have you ever made a Medicare claim? They’re already held centrally.
The main protection citizens currently have against governments knowing everything about them is simple cost. It’s not a matter of the cost of collection and physical storage, which is small and rapidly diminishing, but the management costs of huge volumes of infrequently accessed records. Old Centrelink, tax and Medicare databeses get archived quite quickly, from whence retrieval is possible but expensive.
That our privacy depends mainly on public servants’ desire to keep management costs down is not, actually, very reassuring.
The other issue besides centralising records, is of course, security of access to those records.
Let’s just hope they don’t use this chip on the smartcard…
Risks Digest 25.8″
Having someone clone my SmartRider, and getting access to the few dollars I put on that from time to time to use the train, is one thing, but getting access to my medical records is another thing entirely.
I do like the unsubstantiated story of “one European country has deployed military
soldiers to guard some government facilities that use the MiFare Classic
chip in their smart door key cards”, though.