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Australia to “actively explore” a national digital ID system

14 points by Jerry2 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gumby 5y ago
I’m guardedly in favour. I see how well it works in Estonia and think, “Hey, that would be great in AUS.” I also think of Australia’s global leadership in putting laws online. Then I think of the recent governments, and various execution fiascos like NBN and I think that this could turn into mandatory spyware, or more likely a half-witted rort. The worst is that it seems clear that, while this could be done in a wonderfully privacy-preserving way, it’s more likely to be a leaky, non-private implementation.
- bogantech 5y ago
  Our government will find some way to use it against us. They already record metadata relating to all our activities online I'm sure this will be used to pry into our lives even more.
  - helph67 5y ago
    Remember the `Australia Card' idea back in the Hawke days which was rejected by the people.
aplummer 5y ago
It’s pretty convenient using myGov to do taxes and Medicare. The identity part is honestly the least usable bit. I’d be a fan since we already have tax file numbers that pretty much function as this.
- Andaith 5y ago
  I agree, mygov is convenient. BUT it could be MORE convenient. Why do I have to provide all my income/tax details to centrelink? The ATO already has that? Only recently can you register a birth with Medicare through the centrelink portal, but you still have to to the births/deaths/marriages thing separately. Why do we have to apply for certain things through centrelink, like the child care subsidy, Parental leave, Family Tax Benefit? When applying for these things, I'm giving the govt info it already has. It should be that you just register the birth of a baby and they check everything you're eligible for and just transfer it to you with a notification saying "you're getting x, y, but not Z." Or for CCS, you just send them to daycare, the daycare registers you, and voila the govt knows your income so they know how much CCS to give you... A national ID as a primary key across all these distributed databases seems like a good idea to make a lot of government services better. I'm sure the govt will bugger up the implementation though...

14 points by Jerry2 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

I’m guardedly in favour. I see how well it works in Estonia and think, “Hey, that would be great in AUS.” I also think of Australia’s global leadership in putting laws online. Then I think of the recent governments, and various execution fiascos like NBN and I think that this could turn into mandatory spyware, or more likely a half-witted rort. The worst is that it seems clear that, while this could be done in a wonderfully privacy-preserving way, it’s more likely to be a leaky, non-private implementation.

bogantech 5y ago
Our government will find some way to use it against us. They already record metadata relating to all our activities online I'm sure this will be used to pry into our lives even more.
- helph67 5y ago
  Remember the `Australia Card' idea back in the Hawke days which was rejected by the people.

aplummer 5y ago

It’s pretty convenient using myGov to do taxes and Medicare. The identity part is honestly the least usable bit. I’d be a fan since we already have tax file numbers that pretty much function as this.

Andaith 5y ago
I agree, mygov is convenient. BUT it could be MORE convenient. Why do I have to provide all my income/tax details to centrelink? The ATO already has that? Only recently can you register a birth with Medicare through the centrelink portal, but you still have to to the births/deaths/marriages thing separately. Why do we have to apply for certain things through centrelink, like the child care subsidy, Parental leave, Family Tax Benefit? When applying for these things, I'm giving the govt info it already has. It should be that you just register the birth of a baby and they check everything you're eligible for and just transfer it to you with a notification saying "you're getting x, y, but not Z." Or for CCS, you just send them to daycare, the daycare registers you, and voila the govt knows your income so they know how much CCS to give you... A national ID as a primary key across all these distributed databases seems like a good idea to make a lot of government services better. I'm sure the govt will bugger up the implementation though...