Regarding the government’s not so voluntary National Digital Identity – you are not alone. We’ve been receiving many similar messages and emails from across Australia.
Three bills were rammed through the Senate, creating dangerous legislation for Australians who value their privacy, security, and civil liberties. The Identity Verification Services Bill, which permits the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens was passed into legislation. The Digital ID Bill was also passed in the Senate with almost no debate and was rubber-stamped in the House of Representatives. The Combatting Misinformation/Disinformation (Censorship) Bill received strong pushback and has gone quiet for now. Instead, we saw an attack on free speech from Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.
Labor is forging ahead in lockstep with other countries to implement the World Economic Forum’s digital economic agenda.
There have been many different digital identity systems floating around in the government. The Digital Identity Bill was designed to create one Digital Identity to rule them all. Among some last-minute concessions in the legislation, the government has said that its new Digital ID can be deactivated. That’s irrelevant however when banks and other institutions will make it mandatory. In fact, Section 74 of the bill states that Digital ID is voluntary, but sub-sections 2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8 list a series of exceptions. All of which means it can be mandated under the flimsy provision of “appropriate to do so”.
The Australian Government’s proposed ‘Trusted Digital Identity Framework’ (they actually used the word ‘trusted’ in the first draft of the bill) is not a stand-alone policy. It sits inside the extensive Digital Economy Strategy 2030 worth $1.2 billion at the time of the 2021-2022 Budget. It will be accessible and used both in government and private settings. This legislation relies on legacy identification mechanisms which guarantee a role for Big Tech companies in the Government’s proposed ‘identity ecosystem’.
Unfortunately, the interests of ‘Big Tech’ and ‘Big Government’ are becoming increasingly aligned. Both parties have a vested interest in pervasive surveillance, data mining and matching: one for profit and the other for control. This represents an unhealthy alignment of State and Corporate interests, with everything that entails.
The new raft of identity legislation creates a brand-new identity record for Australians, originated by Government and validated by Government, and commercial entities. This legislation goes much further than the MyGov digital ID. It puts all your identity eggs into one digital basket and will place more Australians at risk of being hacked.
A much better alternative would be an identity system based on the user owned and operated technologies developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that rely on cryptographic tools and decentralised identifiers to prove ‘trustworthiness’ online, as well as identity – if that is what’s needed. These tools allow for direct, peer-to-peer proofs of trustworthiness and identity verification, without the need for Government or Big Tech involvement. So why is the Australian Government persevering with such a poor-quality identity solution? You might ask yourself, “Why do we need another digital identity system when we already have myGov ID?” The short answer is that this legislation is not designed to serve the interests of ordinary Australians. It’s been designed by foreign Big Tech firms and international governance bodies like the WHO, UN, IPCC and WEF to serve their interests. These organisations profit handsomely in terms of money and power from the capture and exploitation of personal data, and they don’t want that model to change.
The most serious risk associated with this legislation is scope creep. Like Australia, most developed nations around the world are implementing Government Digital Identity systems that are remarkably similar to those already operational in China and India. Over-identification is a feature of both the Chinese and Indian Digital ID legislation and there is a real risk that biometric mechanisms of identification will become a mandatory aspect of every transaction Australians make online and off.
I first drew Australia’s attention to this dangerous and dystopian legislation in 2021 “1984: the Bill” – The Trusted Digital Identity – Malcolm Roberts (malcolmrobertsqld.com.au). I’ve been opposed to the government’s digital identity since it was first proposed under the coalition, when Australia aligned with the World Economic Forum’s goals for a global digital economic strategy. This is the reason government-legislated Digital Identity was created in the first place. Read my article in the Spectator (click here) for more about the bureaucratic bungling behind this legislation.
The government did not come up with the Trusted Digital Identity on its own to solve the issue of outdated government databases. As stated by the policymakers in their accompanying documentation, the Trusted Digital Identity is the brainchild of the World Economic Forum and their global digital identity roadmap. Unlike the Voice, which sought to change the constitution, legislation can at least be undone with a change of government.
It’s important to keep pushing back against these authoritarian measures. The best remedy will be at the ballot box during the next federal election.
If One Nation had had just one more senator in parliament, many of those abhorrent, dystopian bills that were rammed through the Senate with little or no debate would not have been passed.
Make your vote count at the next election.
