Privacy - our choice

Minister for Human Services Joe Hockey says that when it comes to the card, Australians have choice. We don’t have to have the card at all. As well, he says that the card mandates the same information found on a driver’s licence. If the system is cracked - something he has repeatedly refused to guarantee won’t happen - citizens lose no more than they do when their wallets go missing.

First, it is disingenuous to say that participation in the new identity card system is voluntary. No card means no Medicare rebates, PBS medicines, Centrelink payments, Veteran’s pensions, disability benefits, carers’ payments, baby bonus, AusStudy, unemployment benefits or related concessions on public transport and utility bills. Unless we are independently wealthy, we will need to sign up.

The wallet story also mischaracterises reality. I lose mine with absent-minded-professorial regularity and usually, someone nice returns it to me intact.

When they don’t, or its been deliberately nabbed, the loss of my silent number or information about my children has never been a concern. This is not only because, like most people, I don’t keep this information in my wallet, but because even if I did, it would be unlikely to be of interest to an opportunistic thief: something that can’t be said about the high-tech robbers expected to attempt to break in to the honeypot of identity card data.

Like much that is lost, neither the privacy of my silent number or address can be found again. Like a victim of domestic violence, at similar risk to having their safety jeopardised by exposure of their address details, getting a new number and shifting house are the only way to regain my security. At least it’s something. The privacy of my children’s details is gone forever.

All of us are at risk of such irrecoverable loss of our private identifying details and - because the database will hold our biometric data and copies of our proof of identity documents like passports and birth certificates - identity theft.

No matter how state of the art the security designed to protect it, the very nature of the IT wars - the battle for supremacy between security geeks and crackers - means security risks to the system will be perpetual and very real. Steal my credit card, I cancel it and get another. But what next when a cyber-crim knocks off the biometric parameters of my face?

Current proposals for an Australian identity card put my security and that of my family at risk. However, one should not need to demonstrate such a threat to claim the right to enjoy the benefits of privacy. The balance is all wrong. The question isn’t whether citizens have something to hide. The question is whether the government is entitled to demand, record, sift, sort, match and share our private information and biometric identifiers without making a solid case for why this is necessary, how it will work, and why less invasive approaches won’t do.

The kick-off date for card issuing is April or May 2008. Time is fast running out for Australians to say “no”.