id card, again

[maelorin]

Medicare backdoor to ID - Rudd
James Riley
australianIT.com.au
FEBRUARY 18, 2006

FEDERAL plans to issue 15 million Australians with a new Medicare smartcard should not be allowed to become a national ID card by default, Labor has said.

Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said government should tell Australians what information will be stored on the card and whether it will contain biometric data like fingerprints and facial recognition details.

Under plans to be considered by cabinet, Human Services Minister Joe Hockey wants to issue a single smartcard ID for accessing Medicare, Centrelink and other social service agencies.

Mr Rudd said Labor was concerned about government's ability to keep information on the smartcard private, and said the proposal could be used as a "backdoor" to introducing a national ID.

"That's why we are not prepared to give this the green light at this stage," Mr Rudd told Seven's Sunrise program.

"We're a bit concerned that this might be a defacto ID card debate."

The Human Services smartcard proposal will be funded over four years at an expected cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. If it goes ahead, the project will be funded as part of the May federal Budget.

Mr Hockey told The Australian that while the card would act as "a more robust form of ID" for people in their dealings with government, it was not intended to be a national ID card.

He conceded that the Human Services department had been regular contact with the Attorney-General's Department - which is driving the national ID card proposal - over the smartcard's identity features, but denied his plans were linked to the national ID.

He said the card aimed to make agencies like Centrelink and Medicare more efficient and would help stamp out welfare fraud.

No decision had yet been made on whether the smartcard - which contains a chip capable of storing large amounts of information - would include any biometric details of the cardholder.

Labor human services spokesman Kelvin Thomson said while the smartcard could cut costs and streamline services, government had not yet done enough to reassure Australians their personal information would be adequately protected.

"There has been zero consultation, so Australians have no assurance at all that their privacy will remain secure or that their details will not be shared with all arms of the Howard government," Mr Thomson told The Australian.

"It seems quite clear from what Joe Hockey said today that he has in his backpocket a plan to hold much more information on the smartcard that could make it more like a defacto ID card."