Carding Australia

So, the Australia Card is back on the agenda.

Peter Beattie's been on Insiders this morning defending the idea, because "everything has changed since September 11". Trumping privacy concerns, he says, is the much more important desire not to be killed. And anyway, "if someone's got nothing to hide, it's not a problem".

(Not that that argument could be used for ANY of the steps turning us into a police state, of course. eg "We're abolishing the right to see a lawyer if the police arrest you - but that's okay, if you've got nothing to hide, it's not a problem." It's alright, I trust them to know when to stop.)

The card Beattie is proposing appears to be part-run by the banks (it'll supposedly replace all your plastic cards, so you can use it to buy things on EFTPOS) which gives rise to a number of practical concerns as to how on earth all this sort of information could be practically integrated. You've got private information from government authorities - such as tax file numbers, social security details etc (even, presumably, criminal records); and you've got private organisations, banks and so forth, also using your card. The potential for abuse - private organisations getting access to information to which only statutory authorities should have access.

Beattie claims that "this is where the world is going". I would be particularly interested to hear which country has a system analogous to what he's proposing, and how successful it has been since introduction. If we're going to consider giving up civil liberties, there'd better be a better reason than just "we think this might help, and LOOK OVER THERE! A TERRORIST!"