Privacy Digest

Privacy concerns over Government net plans - Technology - theage.com.au: "Privacy advocates fear the introduction of a single-user name and password for accessing all online government services has the potential to become a digital national ID card.

Today's Federal Budget allocates $42 million to create a single sign-on service as part of the Australian Government Online Service Point. To be built at australia.gov.au, the service will enable Australians to carry out transactions with multiple government agencies, and move between government websites, without the need to reconfirm their identity.

In addition, australia.gov.au will use 'smart forms' to automatically draw a user's details from various government departments - such as inserting Medicare details into electronic tax forms. The site will also offer a National Government Service Directory and a change of address service to eliminate the need for users to notify multiple government departments when they move house.

Around 500,000 people currently visit the site every month and 20 government agencies use australia.gov.au to provide search services for their own websites. From next year, users will have the option to create a single sign-on account.

Special Minister of State Gary Nairn announced the allocation of $42.4 million to the project at the CeBIT technology show in Sydney last week.

'Through australia.gov.au we want to eventually provide citizens with individual user accounts and simple access to government services available online through a single sign-on process,' Mr Nairn said.

'The enhanced australia.gov.au will meet tough security standards and, in the interest of safeguarding citizens' privacy, services offered through australia.gov.au will be strictly opt-in. There will be no mandatory requirement for citizens to use or access personal accounts, nor conduct transactions with the government electronically.'

The minister also said the government is 'progressing well' towards the implementation of a secure identity management framework in 2008.

The announcement comes as the government struggles to win support for a national Access Card - a smartcard intended replace up to 17 social services cards, including Medicare cards, by 2010.

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(Read Original Article - Via - theage.com.au.)