A correspondent reminds me I haven’t posted on the latest proposal for an ID card. The only difference to previous occasions is that the proposal is being pushed by Philip Ruddock (reversing his previuos stand). Unlike the usual case with proposals of this kind, we don’t have to ask the question “what would happen if this power fell into the wrong hands” – the power would go straight to the wrong hands.
As far as physical cards are concerned, there are two possibilities. One is that the card would be required only on the kinds of occasions, photo ID is required at present (boarding a plane, for example) in which case there are no great costs in terms of civil liberties, but also no great benefits. The other is that police would be able to demand production of the card at will, which would reduce us to the level of the quasi-dictatorial regimes where people went in fear of losing their “papers”.
It’s also worth noting that non-residents are presumably the group of greatest concern wrt terrorism and they could scarcely be issued with cards, so they would continue to use passports as ID – it does not appear to be hard to get a fake passport from many countries.
The real issue in most debates of this kind is not so much the cards themselves as the associated system of data matching. Most of the time, the assumption of proponents is that the card should be tied to a comprehensive database, accessible by all sorts of government officials. An inevitable consequence is that corrupt officials will, on occasion, make the data available to private parties. Some data-matching is inevitable and desirable, but this should be against a general presumption that information supplied to a government agency or department is confidential to that department, unless a specific case for sharing classes of information can be made.
John Quiggin 
I’ve never quite understood how an ID card functions differently from a drivers license. How would they be used and why couldn’t a drivers license be used for any and all of the same purposes?
I’ve never quite understood how an ID card functions differently from a drivers license.
It would be compulsory for one thing, I imagine, otherwise what would the point be? I don’t have a drivers licence. Until recently, I had the opposite problem :I wanted some kind of govt issued photo ID card to make life alot simpler but couldn’t get one. I don’t like the idea of it being forced on me though and agree it wouldn’t add much beyond the forms of ID and info crosschecking we already have.
There probably aren’t many adults without drivers licenses. At least in the US. Possibly some very elderly women but other than that, everyone over 16 is going to have one. Most of us the DAY we turn 16.
I think it is useful to distinguish two types of privacy concern:
1. Private information being disclosed to other individuals or firms
2. The information being used by the state to regulate individuals
Most discussion of privacy usually focuses on the first issue, but I think it is the second that is of key concern. If democracy is not to become ‘dictatorship of the majority’ then there needs to be some room for deviant behaviour.
As a researcher, I would love to have unique personal IDs on government databases that I could link to do all sorts of useful research. However I am doubtful that an ID card would even lead to this. In order to play lip service to privacy, reason 1 above would be invoked to restrict access – without having any impact on the second issue.
Petty authoritarians and control freaks in government have used the much misrepresented (note I don’t use the word “exaggerated”) threat of terrorism to foist their long coveted plans for monitoring the people.
Temporary panic will result in permanent restriction of privacy.
We should demand that this obnoxious proposal aimed at taking Australia one further step along the road towards becoming a police state, like all the other recent Government legislation aimed at changing the fabric of society and which has never been put to the Australian electors, be put to the public at a referendum, and certainly should not be enacted prior to the next election.
At the very least, we have a right to thorough public discussion in which the views of all sided are properly aired and the arguments on all sides are subject to thorough scrutiny. Philip Ruddock, when he floated the idea again recently said that there shoudl be a debate over this issue.
Let’s hold him to his word this time.
Let’s see if he is prepared to publicly debate Roger Clarke.
Worth noting that Mr Ruddock yesterday announced a comprehensive two year review of the Privacy Act to be carried out by the Australian Law Reform Commission: http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/MinisterRuddockHome.nsf/Page/Media_Releases_2006_First_Quarter_31_January_2006_-_Australian_Law_Reform_Commission_to_review_Privacy_Act_-_0062006.
“The real issue in most debates of this kind is not so much the cards themselves as the associated system of data matching�
Oh God please. My life would be so much easier if that was happening. And being a nonperson I don’t have obsessions that there is going to be some one finding something out about me. So I think why should my life be made so much more difficult because there are people who consider their privacy needs must always trump others efficiency needs. More than efficiency , having a MUM with dementia, its different departments and different requirements for access and representation and illnesses and drugs and allergies and doctor’s and carer’s reports over and over. Then because all data must be kept secret having to do constant finances changes notifications etc to various agencies. And to speak in favour of the Privacy Act in my presence is to risk one’s life. I am certain that it is resulting in the death of some elderly. But of course there are higher matters that must take precedence.
The blogosphere has hammered home the difference in how men and women look at things for me. A good example of that difference, the study that showed that German men who hid Jews did so because it was the noble thing to do. Women did it because Mr Cohen was a nice man and didn’t deserve to be taken away. So maybe many of us operate at the plebeian level, but for most of us that is how life is and the systems should work for us. And I really have no problem with police being able to request presentation of an ID card.
Why are these issues always couched in terms of the Last Stand at the Alamo?
“the power would go straight to the wrong hands.�
“their long coveted plans for monitoring the people.”
“towards becoming a police state,”
I read this about the Dutch card system and drooled.
“Reliable electronic identification, electronic signatures and encryption facilities are essential to large-scale, secure communications, transactions and information exchange between the government and the public, the government and the business community and between government agencies themselves. For maximum reliability and flexibility, digital certificates will be stored on smart cards.
For the citizen, the electronic Dutch Identity Card, which is currently being tested, would be suited to be used for this. The tests and results of further research will determine the go-ahead. Ideally, the new ID card is a high performance carrier of electronic certificates for identification, electronic signature and encryption of messages. Moreover it is planned to be widely available. In light of these parameters, activities relating to the introduction of the identity document and the public service PKI will be consolidated insofar as possible. Together, these programmes provide electronic signatures and a reliable means of identification in the interchange between social actors and the government as well as between government agencies themselves ‘
I am not as skeptical of a single id card, providing it is not compulsory, as most people seem to be. I cannot help thinking that it would make life so much easier all round if we just accepted a single id system and then did our best to make the controls on it as well thought out and well enforced as possible. The information is already in government hands and easily accessible. Advances in computing have allowed that. Opposing a single id system just means problem of controlling access has to be solved over and over again. Having this information stored all over the place in different government departments all with differing procedures and levels of committment to protection of privacy makes the task of controlling access to your personal information more difficult not simpler. If the information is in one database then you can institute meaningful controls, such as keeping logs of who accessed the information and why. At the moment, if a violation of your privacy is found, you do not have a meaningful way of finding out which government department released your information as you would have to get any department with access to your information to check its records to see who accessed them. That would be a difficult or probably impossible exercise. If its one place, then this is actually possible.
Having the information spread all over the place simply gives would be abusers of information more choices about the best way to access it and makes it easier for all involved to hide their tracks.
And there is the benefit of the efficiency gains for both the government and the individual. For example in Sweden they already have a single identification system. When someone changes their name such as upon marriage, all they have to do is ring up social security and the new information is updated on all their government records, for health, welfare, everything.
I agree with Ros and Still Working It Out – having a single ID number will provide a genuine convenience for most citizens in dealing with various government departments, and will regularise the massive amount of data-matching that already goes on inside and between government departments, allowing greater accountability and transparency.
The trick is to ensure that the private sector does not get access to our ID numbers or you can kiss your personal privacy goodbye. Ask why the Business Council of Australia thinks ID cards are such a good idea. Its not just the savings in combating identity fraud that attract the BCC, they are quietly slavering over the possibility that they might get their hands on lucrative data about your personal affairs, nicely organised and delivered free by a government that believes the business of government is business.
And for those who worry about an impending “police state”, get behind a Bill of Rights for Australia – we are the last western democracy left standing without specified constitutional rights, including the right to vote.
Cards are a rubbish idea. We should all have RFIDs inserted in our arses.
grace pettigrew wrote : And for those who worry about an impending “police stateâ€?, get behind a Bill of Rights for Australia – we are the last western democracy left standing without specified constitutional rights, including the right to vote.
And why would you assume that anyone opposed to an ID card would not wish to throw their full weight behind any moves ot establish a Bill of Rights?
If we contiinue along the current political trajectory we will end up having a compulsory ID with no political and civil rights whatsoever, and ruled over by this thoroughly objectionable and ill-intentioned Government which has shown that is prepared to stop at almost nothing in order to hold onto power, including, it’s cover-up, prior to the 2004 elections of the AWB bribery scandal.
In a society, with a meaningful Bill of Rights, governed by a government which was honest, competent, open and accountable and had the best interests of all the members of society at heart, I might be prepared to reconsider my current objections to any ID card.
However, in the current political climate, any thought of handing over any more power to this Government, is extremely naive, at best.
Ros, do you believe your mother will never lose her card. Because if she ever does then things are going to be far worse for her than now.
The reason Ruddock wants this card is so that the next time DMIA catch a Cornelia Rau or Vivian Alvarez all they have to do is say “do you have a card?” if not people can be deported to whatever country DMIA decides they are probably from. It really is that simple. No Card – your rights to anything become precisely zero.
I’d be wary of such a situation in the Netherlands, but I’m absolutely opposed here, in the context of a government department which is not only indifferent to our basic rights, but actively looking for the opportunity to incacerate or deport innocent people.
This is why wilful’s proposal, though presumably a joke, is actually better than the card idea.
Yes I agree.
The tax file number has already had an impact on the deviant behaviour of avoiding taxation. This clearly shows how the state has already exploited identification powers.
The state should stay out of our wallets and out of our bedrooms.
Speaking of ID requirements for boarding planes, I boarded a plane in Canberra a couple of days ago using an electonic kiosk. The only ID required was the reference number on the e-ticket. No licence or any other form of personal ID required. This seems to be something of a step backwards in airport security.
“A good example of that difference, the study that showed that German men who hid Jews did so because it was the noble thing to do. Women did it because Mr Cohen was a nice man and didn’t deserve to be taken away.”
Ros, we live in a globalised, impersonal world. Women’s priorities, as you describe them, simply don’t work in a context of impersonal relationships.
And I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t work very well in the closest-knit village either:
“Mr Cohen is a greasy little individual. Let him burn.”
Is this condemnation of Mr Cohen morally defensible on any basis?
Back in the 1980s I was moderately sympathetic to the idea of the Australia Card, which the Right excoriated as the top of the slippery slope to totalitarianism, stampeding the Chicken Littles in the process.
My concern about this new ID is its propinquity, not to the supposed benefits of the Welfare State, but to the disciplines and punishments of the Security State.
(Frankly now, even if the card were proposed on the fluffiest Scandanavian model, I’d now be against it. Too many powerful interests already know too much which is none of their legitimate business in a state that cherishes privacy, independence and personal liberty.)
Amanda: This “compulsory” sort of question has cropped up before. In the days before John-Adolf Eichmann-Howard took guns from law abiding people, there was a thing known as a “shooters licence” (issued by the government of Wayne-Vladimir Stalin-Goss).
This “lifetime” licence (haha… ) had printed on it the holder’s driver’s licence number. For a time there was much confusion about what to do with people who had never held a driver’s licence.
However when the applications for the shooters licences were processed, people who did not have a driver’s licence found they had a number on their shooters licence which would be the number of their driver’s licence, if they ever applied for one.
Here is a good reason to be wary of ID; as people have been tossing the Dutch example: apparently its been cracked.
http://www.theregister.com/2006/01/30/dutch_biometric_passport_crack/
In principle I would be in favour of a national ID card provided it was merely for ID, so as to replace the defacto drivers licence. I don’t drive (yet), so this is a continual annoyance, especially as my passport is convieniently sized to be lost!
One of the great things about Australia is that there is no legal requirement to carry ID with you at all times (unlike so many European countries). Sadly, the reason I will in reality be against a national ID card, is that the politicians and government departments will not be able to help themselves and attach all many of data to such a card, require that it be carried at all times, and turn Australia into “no card, no service” beurocracy.
One final point that I never see raised. Any new ID card, no matter how perfect, uncrackable, and full of gee-whizz gadgetry, will have to be based, at the implementation phase, on existing forms of flawed ID. If you want a fake national ID, just generate yourself a fake persona before it is implemented. Its amazing how far a birth certificate (a form of ID!!!!???) can get you.
James,
While I do not agree with your sentiments on trashing the current government, I otherwise agree completely.
AFAIK, not a single one of the terrorist attacks against the Western nations over the last few years could have been prevented or even hindered by a national id card. More attacks have in fact been made in countries with an ID card than those without.
The ID card is a government based solution looking for a problem. In the 1980’s, under Hawke, the ID card was a solution to tax avoidance. In the 1950’s an ID card was a proposal against communists. In the 1940’s, against spies.
The experience in the US, with the social security number, is that it becomes the ideal unique identifier in every company’s database. I tried to get a pizza delivered in Hawaii and they asked for my social security number – I asked why and it was ‘for identification’. I explained I did not have a number but I would still like a pizza. It took them about 5 minutes to understand that, as a foreigner, I did not have a card. I did get the pizza, though.
Silly and possibly dangerous non-solution to a problem. Reject it.
Um Katz if I was paranoid I might think that you are saying that the women’s perspective just won’t cut it in a complex complicated global world. Not sure if you mean women or all persons would more than likely behave badly in a small community.
A poll done in the UK last November somewhat supports my contention that women have a different perspective to men . Women are slightly more supportive of ID cards, 53 per cent. 48 per cent of men were supportive. There were interesting differences in strength of belief also, with men more likely to hold extreme views either way, choosing the “very good” or “very bad” options. Women were more likely to be undecided, choosing this option three times more frequently that the men.
Stephen my Mum is way beyond being able to have personal control of anything. Hence in my preferred world she would have an ID which allowed all necessary information pertinent to her affairs to be obtainable electronically via a smart card and I would be her agent. It would sure beat my current situation where I have to keep a stock of certified Enduring Powers and manually use them every time I have to act on her behalf. I am a trustee with DVA, they don’t recognise Enduring Powers, a guardian with Health and Ageing and state health bodies and a nominated person with care bodies. Her bank alone has 5 copies of the Power secreted somewhere in their system. The suggested French system where ID cards would be voluntary other than for passports and government benefits would be enough to make me happy.
The UK has decided that Muslim women are to be exempt from showing their faces on their cards. Amusing really considering that when, in what women thought was a big step forward, Saudi in 2001 changed the law to allow some women to have independent ID cards, the old boys were upset because they had to have their faces uncovered. The change was made because according to Prince Nayef
“The issuing of identity cards to women was dictated by the requirements of modern life to enable a woman to carry out all her activities with ease and also to prevent forgeries and trickeries committed in the name of women in the absence of identification�
Well, unlike most of your posters to date, here is a view in support of ID cards for all. Reason: We all choose to live in a modern society that involves rights and obligations. If we choose to accept the benefits of living in such a society, then how can we argue against accepting the corresponding obligations. The first of these is to have a system to ensure that the benefits (whatever they might be) go to the person who is qualified to receive them. In my view, the only people who oppose ID cards are those who think that they somehow have something to lose.
Ray,
The corresponding obligations do not have to include accepting the need to carry a card to prove who I am to all and sundry and that allows a person with appropriate access or great hacking skills to find out everything about me. Have no doubt – because this system would have to be widely available to be effective that it will be hacked. If there is an error in the data (possibly introduced by a hacker) the process to get it corrected may well be a long one and in the mean time my life may be on hold – what happens if it incorrectly identifies me as a wanted criminal?
There is no need for this, it fixes no problems that cannot be fixed using other means and if you believe that countries with one are any better off than we are I suggest you do a bit more research.
These systems are put in plce for the convenience of the government and public servants – not the rest of us.
One of my concerns with an ID Card doesn’t seem to have been mentioned yet. That is the possibility to have a RFID capacity on the card. Our new Australian passports now have an RFID chip in them. That is, they contain a microchip that transmits data over radio frequencies to RFID readers that are within a few meters of the Passport – without the passport owner even knowing.
See http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/passports/
An RFID capacity would be a serious privacy issue with these ID Cards, if we would have to carry these cards with us at all times.
Imagine public spaces such as railway stations with RFID readers near entrances. Authorities could track someone, by ID and with full access to government records, without them even knowing. Whos in a the railway station – bang, these a list. Is there someone travelling without an ID? Easy.
That is a real invasion of privacy.
“I’ve never quite understood how an ID card functions differently from a drivers license. How would they be used and why couldn’t a drivers license be used for any and all of the same purposes?”
In some countries a driver’s license isn’t accepted as an ID document, whereas an ID card obviously is. Also, there are many who don’t have a license.
A passport is also accepted, but not everyone has one of those either. And because passports don’t fit in all wallets, not everyone likes carrying them.
So you’re left with the problem of how to identify yourself in everyday situations, such as
a) interactions with banks etc;
b) and at government agencies (mainly benefit offices of course, because that’s where ALL Europeans hang out, according to you :-); and also
c) when making credit card purchases involving sums larger than €50.
That’s where ID cards come in – they’re a secure means of proving who you are. And if you’re European, you can use your ID card in place of a passport to travel throughout the EU, so they’re pretty handy.
“There is no need for this, it fixes no problems that cannot be fixed using other means and if you believe that countries with one are any better off than we are I suggest you do a bit more research.”
Andrew, of course ID cards by themselves aren’t the be-all and end-all. But they’re usually linked to a population register, and that really CAN save you a lot of time and effort too – if it’s properly organised.
For example, none of my mail ever arrives at the wrong address. It comes to me, and no one else. Even if I move.
I don’t have to register to vote, because I am always registered. The voting forms come to me automatically.
And there are many other ways it helps me.
Of course you’re right too – such measures DO also help the government, which as a result is faster, more efficient and cheaper (=costs less tax). And they don’t need army of spooks to make phone calls behind your back and keep secret records on you.
“If there is an error in the data (possibly introduced by a hacker) the process to get it corrected may well be a long one…”
Might be in some countries, but it doesn’t have to be.
About five years ago, hackers broke into the Swedish Social Security website, and replaced most of its pages with hardcore porn! This is 100% true, and you can check it.
But a couple of days later, it was up and running again, and next to no damage was caused (except to its reputation).
With an efficient system, you can tell quite quickly if someone has a real conviction or not, at least domestically.
“Um Katz if I was paranoid I might think that you are saying that the women’s perspective just won’t cut it in a complex complicated global world.”
Ros, I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to guess at your state of mind.
And to extend and generalise my modesty about my ability to read the minds of others: there are at least 3 billion women on this crowded earth. Forgive me for doubting that there is “the woman’s perspective” on anything. Just like chaps, lasses tend to have a range of opinions on many interesting subjects, many of them intelligent.
The Australian poll on National ID cards yesterday, while the male female support is reversed to the British (though females still 52%) the noticeable difference is in strongly and partly. Both for and against women are much less the strongly than men and much more the partly. And 19 to men’s 12 for uncommitted.
Katz do you have any thoughts on why women are so few in this interactive media form.
Andrew,
Glad to hear that you are also opposed to the ID card.
If we do ever achieve the free market nirvana of which you dream, it just might be a small consolation to me if to not have to deal with the added indignity of a compulsory ID card.
I actually think it is plausible to assume that a compulsory ID card might, once in a while, hinder the operations of a terrorist group, so, quite possibly, it might just slightly reduce the risk of terrorist attack, if it were possible to measure this risk.
However, I would argue that the small reduced threat to our lives and safety would be far more offset by the massive costs, inconvenience as well as the added risks to our lives, safety and well-being, posed by placing more such powers in the hands of such a demonstrably malevolently intentioned Government as this one.
Also, compared to all the other risks that our society now finds itself able to cope with (road deaths, drownings, industrial deaths, lung cancer, alcohol related deaths etc.) the actual risk posed by terrorism attack is small.
Compared to the other dire threats posed, for example, by global warming and economic collapse which would result, even in the short term, from a sudden rise in oil prices, the threat posed by terrorism is truly insignificant.
The current priorities of our Government, and our newsmedia are therefore completely wrong.
To the extent that the threat of terrorism has increased since 2001, it has demonstrably been brought about by the actions of our own Howard Government, no matter which of their different self-contradictory stories we choose to believe.
If we were to believe that the invasion of Iraq was necessary because of the claimed threat to world peace posed by Hussein in 2003, then this Government, by commission, or by grossly incompetent omission, has contributed to that risk by allowing $300 million of Australian dollars to flow into the pockets of his regime.
If, as I do, and as does all informed world public opinion, then and now, we believe that even with the Australian bribe money, Hussein did not pose any significant threat to its neighbours, or anyone else, then this country, together with the US, against the considered warnings of those who opposed the invasion, are still culpable for the heightened terrorist that has ensued from the invasion.
Those who seriously argue for an ID card as a necessary response to terrorism, if they were consistent, would firstly do all they can to bring about the removal of this Government as first and necessary step if we are to have any hope of tackling the symptom of terrorism, let alone its root causes.
“Katz do you have any thoughts on why women are so few in this interactive media form.”
It’s an interesting question Ros.
The internet takes no account of gender. It is possible to adopt a persona of one’s choosing. One’s pseudonym can either be gender ambiguous (as is my own) or be actually misleading (as is Ernestine Gross’s).
Yet for a variety of reasons it is possible to read gender with a fair degree of accuracy.
Indeed men and women do tend to address the world in ways that are identifiably different to anyone who is a bit sensitive to tone.
But does that difference signify anything about the willingness of women to engage in the kinds of exchanges routinely found on blogs such as this?
Maybe women have more productive uses for their time.
“One of the great things about Australia is that there is no legal requirement to carry ID with you at all times (unlike so many European countries).”
Well… you will be in trouble if you fail to produce id on demand to the Victorian police. They used to exceed their powers by doing this (which didn’t keep you out of trouble), so the law was changed to make it obligatory. Police misbehaviour became legal.
So it’s not compulsory to carry id, just compulsory to produce it on demand.
Later, I will post a letter I once wrote to Quadrant on the subject, that was mainly motivated by my own experiences of suffering from faulty data matching (one of the other people with the same first name, last name, middle initial, and date of birth had left the country without my informing a government department).
Needless to say, id systems are in the final analysis implemented by bureaucrats with no understanding that statistics and common sense are not interchangeable. They therefore only accept systems that make sense, and which are therefore rubbish.
Alot of the arguments against an id card are basically compalints about about centralised data collection itself. The idea that someone is able to look up information about you easily and quickly and the potential abuse of that information. What is not acknowledged is that the driving force behind this centralisation of information is not the government but rather technology. Advances in computing have made the centralised storage and retrieval of information very cheap. Information is being stored simply because it is cheap to do so. Its not just government. Private credit bureaus probably have better and more organised information available about you than the government. Your phone records are stored by your phone company. Electricity consumption by the electric company.
As more and more commerce moves to the internet even smaller commercial entities will be able to collect this data a well.
Trying to stop the centralised storage of information is not going to work because it is a trend driven by technolgy and economics. We should focus our energy on making it secure and transparent. Outright opposition will not stop it and simply encourages the whole thing to operate in the dark without any controls.
Well here’s a suggestion. Instead of mandating an ID requirement for everybody, lets just insist that anybody who is somehow drawing support from the public revenue (ie tax funds that we all subscribe) – ie public servants, university professors, school teachers, welfare beneficiaries – carry an Australian Card ID to ensure that a) they are who they say they are, and b) they are getting their just entitlements.
It would be an interesting vote in a society that is (according to CSI statis) providing welfare for 1 in 5 people in the community (compared with 1 in 25 some 30 years ago) and that is not counting the “carers” (the public servants, court officials, counsellors etc) that are paid from the public payroll.
Is it unreasonable for us law abiding tax payers to demand some accountability from the authorities as to how our taxes are utilised????
Ray Soper, would the ID card under your proposal also be mandatory for members of the miltary, parents who send their kids to private schools that receive tax payer funds and shareholders in corporations that benefit from tax breaks, corporate welfare and so on?
We wouldn’t want to be discriminatory, would we?
Ray Soper Says:
Ah, here we see the reason why the wingnuts want ID cards. I’m a real citizen and I’ll get one, but you won’t. Nyah nyah. No crazy fascist oppression of Australians involved here at all. No sir. No failure to actually do anything useful about terrorism. Nothing like that.
As others have pointed out above, (Steve Munn, John Quiggin), the supporters don’t seem to have thought this through very carefully. Or at all, really.
I guess that tends to be the nature of wingnut fantasies.
Here’s a left wingnut fantasy – google Acxiom with PBL – and see the connections between the giant US republican-funded “data management” corporation, and the late Kerry Packer’s commercial drive to collect data on everyone at home here – and who was his hand picked candidate to run this operation? Why none other than Andrew Robb, erstwhile Federal Director of the Liberal Party (now MP).
Why him? Because as Federal Director he had access to the entire Australian electoral roll, including all the personal stuff. This government database is electronically delivered to all major political parties, and from this database they construct their own databases containing additional information on all electors that they routinely collect through letters to the editor, internet websites, personal representations, demographic analyses, commercial data, government databases, etc.
By the way, the Howard Government made sure that you have no right to see what information is held on you by the political parties, by exempting these databases from the provisions of the Privacy Act.
And assume for the sake of argument, that Robb took a copy of this massive Liberal Party database over to PBL, which was in business with Acxiom. This would be technically illegal so we will never know. Is our personal information now being globalised? Are the Liberals and the Republicans sharing political strategies and business plans on data management in order to fix elections?
So be relaxed and comfortable, as State by State in the USA, legislation is passed to require voters to present ID before they are allowed to vote (see bradblog.com), noting that the Howard Government has been pushing for a similar ID requirement to vote by amendment to the Electoral Act. This is in addition to all the other republican strategies now filtering into the Australian electoral system, straight from the Rove textbook on how to fix elections, such as knocking the young and the poor off the rolls, rendering campaign donations opaque, and so on.
If an ID card is legislated for in Australia, it will have to be universal and compulsory (perhaps with a time period to allow all to comply). It will be required in order to vote. And if political parties gain access to the ID numbers as well as the electoral roll then it won’t be long before the secret ballot is a relic of the past.
“the supporters don’t seem to have thought this through very carefully. Or at all, really”
SJ, what are you saying?
That the case is made for you not being able to identify yourselves?
“So be relaxed and comfortable, as State by State in the USA, legislation is passed to require voters to present ID before they are allowed to vote (see bradblog.com), noting that the Howard Government has been pushing for a similar ID requirement to vote by amendment to the Electoral Act.”
Excellent post Grace Pettigrew.
While Right Wing wedge politicians in the US and Australia declare their devotion to democracy, they are seeking ways to:
1. restrict the franchise
2. narrow the qualifications for legally exercising the franchise
3. make voting irksome
4. miscount the vote
This project is much further advanced in the US, where the Republican machine has taken control of electoral machinery in crucial constituencies. The Australian Electoral Commission is a bulwark against many abuses.
But Australian elections are usually much closer than American elections, so every vote counts. Disenfranchising even a small number of people can swing results.
“So be relaxed and comfortable, as State by State in the USA, legislation is passed to require voters to present ID before they are allowed to vote”
if someone stole your wallet or purse and got your voter registration card, they could easily vote in your name. Wouldn’t you consider that fraud?
Ray Soper, your sugestion is discriminatory because people are pushed into those dependencies rather than freely accepting them. It simply multiplies the burdens thrust upon people by the ground cover plant that government has become.
I promised the letter I wrote to Quadrant (also here):-
Letter printed in Quadrant of March, 2002
Identity cards
You say various things about identity cards in your November editorial. Not all of them are borne out by experience, not even by the examples you give.
For instance, there is indeed a valid argument from expense against them. What counts is not the fact that a universal card would be cheaper than a multiplicity; the costs we now face are sunk costs, and a new universal card would impose new and additional costs.
As for risks of being on a central registry being “fantasy and paranoia”, even the limited system we now have has already presented me personally with a real and continuing burden. As I am one of the unexpectedly frequent victims of faulty data matching, I have a continuing struggle to prevent being linked to other people of the same name and date of birth. To say that errors “can be dealt with easily enough”, that is not so even now. That is, they can be dealt with but not easily; after two years I found that I had not received driving licence correspondence as it had been sent to Koo Wee Rup. As, when and if there is a universal system, far from these independent checks being as convenient the errors that creep in will be locked in; any “check” will simply be referred back to the central registry which will accurately if spuriously return the false information it holds. If on immigrating I found it hard enough to get a Tax File Number on the grounds that I already had one and lived in Gippsland, what would happen to people in my predicament in the future? The worst that has happened to me so far was being given a difficult deadline to challenge a Social Security penalty some years ago, with a contact address for an office that was in the process of closing, when one of my alter egos had left the country without my (naturally) telling the government. At least it is unlikely that I will face the fate of the person who was recently deported because of mistaken identity (page 6 of the Australian of 4.12.01), but if that ever happened to anyone just how easily could it be challenged? It was sheer luck that brought that case to light.
And that is just an example of what can happen to individuals when mistakes are made. It cannot be measured by any aggregate, as those tests simply slide over the problem. How much worse could they get if, indeed, there ever were bad faith at any level, whether institutional or from the misbehaviour of some individual? Both possibilities exist, with the latter being realistic if we can judge from recent court cases against a former ATO officer.
No, in this matter, as in matters of constitutional change, I prefer Henry Ford’s design philosophy: when asked why his cars did not have a certain common feature, he replied that if he didn’t put one in it couldn’t break and it couldn’t fall off. And, he might have added, the savings in money, space, and weight could be devoted to the other parts. In the days when automotive matters were untried, unproven, and often erratic, this was a sound principle whatever the advantages of the feature. Since – contrary to your position, and as I have found from my own direct experience – we do have serious defects in our existing identification approaches, I submit that this is the line we should take here.
Rats. That link should have been this.
Wilful suggests RFID’s. yet no-one else has a comment on that !
Extraordinary, RFID’s are the next step after IDcards.
Either that or a barcode tattoo on your forearm.
avaroo – not sure how often you vote in Australian federal elections, but we are not required to produce voter registration cards to vote here. We do have to be enrolled, and we do have to state our name and address and have our name crossed off the roll in order to get a ballot paper. What we mark on the ballot paper in the secrecy of the voting booth is, so far, our business.
Voting more than once, or voting in the name of another person, is occasionally tried by smart alecs wanting to “test the system”, and they are usually caught and prosecuted by the AEC after the election. The fact is that in order to try to defraud an election result by multiple or personated voting (say by 200 votes in a marginal), you would have to be highly secret, well organised, superhumanly prescient, and operating below the AEC’s and the political parties’ radars. There is no evidence that this has occurred in any federal election in modern times, and you can bet both major political parties would be jumping all over it if it had.
It is more likely that people will attempt to defraud the electoral system by false enrolments, for other purposes related to identity fraud (or in the case of Karen Ehrmann in Queensland a few years ago, for internal party preselection purposes), but again they are usually caught and prosecuted by the AEC.
Those who claim that voter identification is required in order to stop individuals defrauding the vote are in the grip of a carefully nurtured right wingnut fantasy – smoke and mirrors. While you, avaroo, are jumping at shadows, your electoral system is being systematically dismantled and distorted by right wing governments, here and in the USA.
Small passive RFIDs can have a reading distance of only a few centimetres currently. So if inserted into a hand or shoulder or something, they’d not invade privacy more than ID papers, they couldn’t likely be read without the knowledge of the individual. Basically an unloseable and harder to forge ID card. Biometric analysis can take place more remotely and is a far greater risk of big brotherhood or corporate misuse.
I’m applying for a new passport at the moment, it’ll have biometric markers and an RFID.
Frankly I don’t care much. I think it would make life easier. Maybe I’m nonchalant because I’m an anglo male who doesn’t plan on committing a crime, except the odd thought crime, and also because I’m pretty comfortable with the recent government legislation, both State and Federal, such as the Information Privacy Act, to ensure that opportunities for misuse of this data are limited.
“avaroo – not sure how often you vote in Australian federal elections”
Never. I’m not Australian. My comment was about the US, as was your comment, to which mine was a response.
“What we mark on the ballot paper in the secrecy of the voting booth is, so far, our business.”
Same here, but we don’t use paper ballots.
“Voting more than once, or voting in the name of another person, is occasionally tried by smart alecs wanting to “test the systemâ€?, and they are usually caught and prosecuted by the AEC after the election.”
My comment concerned the unacceptability of someone voting in another’s name. Personally, I wouldn’t care for someone obtaining my voter registration card and voting in my name.
If you reply, skip the nutty stuff. I never respond to it and only skim it when it’s apparent you (or anyone else) has gone off on some odd fantasy.
Here’s an example of what providing ID might help with, it would eliminate voting by dead people. Who do you prosecute when you find that a dead person has voted in an election?
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001699397
avaroo – thanks for letting me in on the secret and putting me straight on the voter registration card in your kick. You had me worried there for a while!
Perhaps you should try reading bradblog.com.us about the real problems you have with your electoral system(s) over there.
I repeat, you are jumping at shadows and ignoring the grand larceny going on under your nose.
Dead people will always be with us, Diebold will not.
avaroo – sorry again, I forgot to answer your question, who do you prosecute when you find a dead person has voted.
Well, unless you believe in ghosts, law enforcement authorities usually go after the person who assumed the identity of the dead person. Dead people are constantly being resurrected for identity fraud purposes, by the way, and usually for far more nefarious ends than trying to steal an entire election single-handedly.
Incidentally, the media have always loved dead people voting stories and there is a discernible pattern to their appearance. I notice from your link that it is the republican losers in that election who are fanning out into the cemeteries and making the allegations about dead people voting for the wrong candidate. Wonder if these allegations will ever be substantiated in a court of law? Keep watching china.
hirvi said
>And if you’re European, you can use your ID card in place of a passport to travel throughout the EU
Ugh? If only. My Spanish Id card does not grant passport-free travel throughout the EU. The Schengen Agreement permits citizens of `its’ countries to cross their internal borders without checks, but that’s another matter.
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BTW, the only time I use my card is for some bank-card purchases, even those of very low value.
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Many (invoices, web-forms, letters to newspapers) inappropriately ask for an id#; we have spent our lives using id cards. Alas, many appear ignorant of current/EU data-protection principles. This will probably continue. We can but deny them.
I suppose if one looked foreign, the police, et al, would be also be a hassle.
I am reminded of a remark atributed to an Ulster politician: “It was all very well when they were voting dead men, but when they began voting our dead men…”