Is an Australian. Recent large security breaches in Australia have created an environment in which it might be possible to gain acceptance for such a scheme, u

Is an Australian. Recent large security breaches in Australia have created an environment in which it might be possible to gain acceptance for such a scheme, under the guise of (as the article discusses) avoiding exposure of identification documents via lots of small organizations. OTOH, the "My Health Record" scheme (a government-run centralized repository of healthcare records) met some pushback, and this might be of more direct concern, given it's core identity information. No-one credits the government with IT competence (esp following the last census, screwups with the company director registry, etc), and combining that with examples of other such schemes being hacked could potentially create a lot of reluctance to sign up. The scheme as described is voluntary, which might help it get approval. I imagine that while it will technically remain voluntary, over time it will become practically mandatory as various government and commercial services will become next-to-impossible to use without this identifier.