overview
studies
precursors
the Card
opposition
futures
landmarks
related
Guides:
Privacy
Security
Consumers
Networks
related
Profiles:
Forgery &
Forensics
Identity
Theft |
precursors
This
page considers national identification schemes in Australia
prior to the 1980s.
It covers -
introduction
Government identification of citizens – and
others – for financial, security or other purposes
did not arise with the Australia Card. The Card was, in
fact, an iteration of past identity cards and its significance
for Australia is arguably because it embodied the first
ubiquitous national multi-purpose identifier under government
auspices in the digital era.
Earlier registration and identification schemes –
several of which are still in daily use (and are integral
to the operation of government agencies and private sector
entities) – had been adopted in a period when community
perceptions of privacy were different. Driver licences
– the de facto identity document used by most Australian
adults – appear unremarkable, indeed invisible,
because they have "always been there". Unlike
the Australia Card identification schemes such as passports
and driver licensing lack the 'shock of the new', the
novelty that leads some people to ask questions about
principles and applications and provides others with a
focus for ambient anxieties about change or authority.
Those schemes were more restricted than the Australia
Card, because they
-
were ostensibly of limited duration (eg mandatory registration
of non-British subjects for the duration of a war)
-
often had a restricted geographical coverage (eg embodied
over 500 local registers)
-
had a sectoral rather than general coverage (eg drivers
within a particular state/territory rather than all
Australian adults)
-
did not feature a unique identifier that enables rapid
integration of information from disparate databases
-
originated as manual systems (in some instances centred
on handwritten bound registers) rather than being 'born
digital'
Although
information from some pre-1980s databases may have been
distributed widely, the file number or other metadata
used to control that information was not used outside
the particular agency: it wasn't a ubiquitous identifier.
RBDM regimes
The official registration of births, deaths, marriages,
divorces and adoptions provides foundation documents for
the establishment of identity in contemporary advanced
economies.
Comprehensive civil registration (first complementing
and subsequently superseding the registration by religious
organisations of births, baptisms, marriages and deaths
- aka RBDM) is comparatively recent. It for example commenced
in England in 1837 and Australia in 1838, reflecting changing
perceptions of the responsibility of the state, secularisation,
growth in the capacity of government agencies and the
19th century enthusiasm for social statistics discussed
elsewhere on this site.
Commencement dates for civil registration in Australia
and New Zealand are as follows
1838
Tasmania
1841 Western Australia
1842 South Australia
1848 New Zealand
1853 Victoria
1856 NSW
1856 Queensland
1870 Northern Territory (by NSW from 1856)
1930 Australian Capital Territory (by NSW to 1930)
Consistent
with the technology available at that time, the registers
were initially handwritten. More recent information is
now held online (with the Australian Passports Office
and other agencies having access for online validation);
most jurisdictions provide public access to historic registers
through microfilm or microfiche.
In Australia civil registration was a colonial (later
state) responsibility. The various registers now operate
under state/territory legislation rather than federal
law and there is no single federal register of births,
deaths, marriages and adoptions. Access to some information,
notably regarding adoptions, and regimes for recognition
of gender reassignment thus vary from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction. Registration does not provide a unique identification
number.
citizens, aliens and others
Government in Australia and New Zealand, as in other jurisdictions,
have differentiated between citizens and others. That
differentiation has involved the provision of services
and recognition of entitlements (including participation
in the franchise). It has also involved restrictions on
employment, residence and travel for 'aliens' - nationals
of other countries or those whose allegiance was perceived
as problematical - with a consequent registration so that
those aliens can be identified and monitored.
At the time of Federation 'British subject' was the sole
civic status identified in the Australian Constitution,
given disagreement about the nature of Australian and
imperial citizenship. The term 'Australian nationality'
was not given official recognition until the 1969 Citizenship
Act, with Australian citizens officially ceasing
to be British subjects as late as 1984. (An administrative
concept of citizenship was formalised in the Nationality
& Citizenship Act 1948, which differentiated
between British subjects who were permanent residents
of Australia and those who were merely visitors, authorised
or otherwise. Indigenous Australians were recognised as
citizens rather than subjects in 1962.)
The legislation does not provide for a single national
register of all Australian citizens or for a unique national
identifier such as the US Social Security Number. Registration
has instead been sectoral.
The 1916 War Precautions (Alien Registration) Regulations
extended the War Precautions Act 1914 by establishing
compulsory registration of aliens, who were required to
register with state police or federal customs officials.
The Regulations were in effect until replaced by the Aliens
Registration Act 1920 (suspended in 1926 and repealed
in 1934). They provided for restrictions on freedom of
movement within the Commonwealth (and on residence in
some locations), prohibitions on possession of firearms,
internment and deportation of enemy aliens. Registers
were maintained locally: lack of bureaucratic resources
and technology meant that statistical abstracts were held
centrally but there was no single integrated comprehensive
database.
Interagency rivalry and opportunism during the 1920s -
often wrapped in 'war on terror' rhetoric about the need
to surveille bolsheviks, anarchists, freethinkers or other
threats - saw calls by the Commonwealth Investigation
Branch (a predecessor of the Australian Federal Police
and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation) for
detailed registration of and reporting by aliens.
The 1920 Act was hobbled by indifferent support from several
state governments (whose police forces were much larger
than the CIB and were busy with covert surveillance of
citizens and aliens using non-public registers, most of
which are no longer extant). In practice aliens were required
to declare personal details using the 'A42' form on arrival
in Australia but did not register their movement within
the country or notify place of residence.
The Aliens Registration Act 1939 authorised creation
of a register of aliens in each state/territory, with
the person being required to carry a government identification
document at all times for provision on request to a range
of federal and state government officials. Associated
'war precautions' legislation imposed restrictions on
travel and place of residence, accompanied by internment
and deportation.
The regime was updated by the Aliens Act 1947,
utilised by ASIO in building lists of those to intern
in an emergency. The National Archives drily notes that
the records about that activity
provide
compelling reading and insight into the nature of citizenship
and allegiance in Australia.
Official
registration of eligible voters forms the basis of electoral
rolls, maintained by the Australian Electoral Commission
(AEC)
and its federal predecessors, and by state agencies. Enrolment
is compulsory for Commonwealth purposes for Australian
citizens who are 18 years of age or over and who have
lived at their current address for at least one month.
The states and territories have joint roll agreements
with the AEC: electors need complete only one form to
enrol for federal, state/territory and local government
elections. The electoral rolls provide a 'weak identifier'
that features name, date of birth and address rather than
a unique identification number.
Since 1925 federal electoral enrolment has been compulsory
for all Australian citizens over the statutory voting
age (lowered from 21 to 18 in 1974), with women being
included on the federall rolls from 1902. All Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people have been entitled to
enrol since 1962, with a requirement to enrol since 1984.
Between 1949 and 1962 they were eligible to enrol and
vote only if they had served in the Defence Forces, or
the electoral law in their State of residence qualified
them to vote in State elections.
British subjects resident in Australia were eligible to
enrol and vote until 1984.
Federal agencies with special access to the electoral
roll under the Electoral & Referendum Regulations
1940 include the Defence Department, Department of
Employment & Workplace Relations, Australia Post,
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Australian
Crime Commission, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation,
Centrelink and Director of Public Prosecutions.
the 1939 National Register and
identity card
The National Registration Act 1939, complementing
the National Security Act 1939, established a
National Register Board to develop a national labour register
for economic planning purposes, identifying skilled workers
and reserved occupations.
The register was compiled on a state by state and local
basis, initially by Commonwealth Statistician and Commonwealth
Electoral Office staff drawing on the federal electoral
rolls. It was subsequently enhanced through a census covering
all males of age 18 to 65, with information including
indications of their property holdings. Registration did
not involve people carrying a registration card or similar
document. It was essentially a one-off exercise: the information
was not systematically maintained and most registers were
destroyed in 1944 on the grounds of privacy.
The register was replaced under the 1942 National
Security (Man Power) Regulations with a scheme for
registration of all persons over 16 years, with citizens
receiving a basic identity card. That card was to to be
carried at all times, displayed on request by officials
and used in distribution of annual ration coupon books.
The identity card was abandoned soon after the cessation
of hostilities in 1945 but there was a perceived need
to maintain registration and thereby facilitate surveillance
of aliens.
passports
The War Precautions Act 1914 required that all
Australians over sixteen years of age possess a passport
on leaving Australia and that all people entering the
country have a passport (or surrogate) as a condition
of entry.
Passport legislation and practice evolved with changes
to the underlying nationality regime and new technology,
with for example the words 'Australian Passport' replacing
'British Passport' on the cover of an Australian passport
in 1949, a married woman's passport application no longer
having to be authorised by her husband from 1983 onwards,
and machine readable features being introduced in 1984.
The salient enactment is the Passports Act 1938 (PA),
recurrently amended.
Early demand for passports was low, with only 30,000 Australian
passports being issued in 1950. That rose to around 1.45
million in 2000. In the following year there were 586
identified cases of passport fraud and some 15,594 passports
were lost/stolen.
Each passport features an eight-character alphanumeric
registration number.
All Australian travel documents issued in Australia since
1984 are machine-readable, consistent with the International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards
on Machine-Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs).
Australia is currently moving to incorporate biometric
identifiers in its passports and is investigating use
of RFID systems.
A more detailed discussion of passport systems, legislation
and futures is provided in a separate note
elsewhere on this site.
driver licensing
As official documents that incorporate a photograph (and
are now held by around 50% of adult Australians) drivers
licences have served as the de facto standard identity
document in many private and public sector transactions.
Driver and vehicle registration is a state/territory rather
than federal government responsibility, with state governments
maintaining discrete driver license registers. There is
thus no single integrated database or manual register
covering all Australian drivers.
The scope for regulatory arbitrage led to implementation
in 1999-2000 of a national driver licensing scheme under
the auspices of the National Road Transport Commission,
with uniform requirements for key licensing transactions
such as licence issue, renewal, variation and suspension/cancellation.
The scheme provides that people who reside continuously
for over three months outside the state/territory
in Australia in which the licence was issued should transfer
the registration to the new jurisdiction. Individual states
are exploring development of smartcard systems, some of
which would move beyond authentication to provide electronic
access to government services.
labour registers
Identification and regulation of labour by government
has encompassed registration of males for military service,
workers in particular occupations during periods of conflict
and the unemployed (for income support) but has not directly
involved registration
of doctors, lawyers and other specialists. All Australians
thus have not had a national 'employment number' or similar
identifier.
Compulsory military service regimes since Federation have
involved registration of eligible males. Registration
typically involved provision of information about name,
address, date and place of birth, marital status, next
of kin, employment and education history.
The Defence Acts of 1903 and 1904 authorised
the federal Government to register and call-up 'unexempted'
males (aged 18 to 60) in time of war, with compulsory
military training and service within Australia and its
territories in time of peace being established by the
Defence Act 1909. Registration was abolished
in 1929 but reintroduced in 1939 under the Defence
Act of that year.
The National Service Act 1951, following the
declaration of war in Korea, provided for registration
and compulsory call-up for military service of males turning
18 after October 1950, with over 500,000 men registered
between 1951 and 1959. Call-ups ceased in 1959. Five years
later, with a warning from the Prime Minister about "aggressive
Communism", the National Service Act 1964
introduced a compulsory selective national service scheme
based on registration of 20-year-old males (with selection
by ballot from names on that register). Peacetime conscription
and registration formally ceased in 1973.
Official recognition through registration of doctors,
lawyers and other members of the professions has reflected
the division of responsibility between the federal government,
the state/territory governments and professional organisations.
The registration of medical practitioners in Australia
is thus a state/territory responsibility, with nongovernment
bodies regulated by separate legislation in each jurisdiction.
'Mutual recognition' schemes provide reciprocal recognition
of registration of the qualifications of a medical practitioner
registered in another jurisdiction, with the Australian
Medical Council administering the National Compendium
of Medical Registers, a compendium of separate state registers
to facilitate exchange of information between state Medical
Registration Boards regarding the registration status
of practitioners.
health services
Immediately prior to the Australia Card scheme the main
national register involved administration of Medibank
(Medicare from 1984), the national health insurance scheme.
Aspects of the scheme have varied bewilderingly since
inception in 1975 but overall aims have been universal
coverage, equity in distribution of costs and administrative
simplicity. The scheme encompasses free hospital services
for public patients in public hospitals through agreements
with the states, subsidisation of payments by private
patients for hospital services and benefits for out-of-hospital
medical services such as consultations with general practitioners
or specialists. It is complemented by the Pharmaecutical
Benefits Scheme (PBS), subsidising access to prescription
pharmaceuticals. Funding for the insurance scheme in its
first year of operation was $1.6 billion; by 2002-3 that
had grown to around $20 billion.
Administration of the scheme by the federal Health Insurance
Commission (HIC),
a statutory body established by the Health Insurance
Act 1973 (here),
involves registration of health service providers. It
also involves identification of recipients with a number.
That number features on a card supplied by the HIC to
all adults (with children appearing on the card of a parent/guardian).
The card does not include a photograph or biometric data;
in essence its use by consumers is restricted to accessing
health services. There is no requirement that people carry
the card at all times or produce for purposes other than
health services.
As of June 2002 some 20.4 million people were registered
for Medicare benefits, a figure larger than the number
of taxpayers. (Inclusion of some non-citizens results
in a figure larger than the nation's population, which
reached the 20 million mark in January 2004). Over 220
million services were processed in the year to June 2002.
The PBS covered around 166 million prescriptions in the
year to June 2004, at a cost of around $5.6 billion per
year.
Administration of the scheme has featured data analysis
to identify over-billing by health service providers or
other abuses (with some matching of information held by
the Australian Taxation Office or in other databases)
and for epidemiological studies. It also involves a rich
source of data about a very large population. As we have
noted in discussing the Australian privacy regime
and medical privacy special
provision is made for the protection of identifiable personal
information.
The Fraser Government's 1976 Medibank Review Committee
(which restructured the Medibank financial arrangements
and allowed the HIC to enter the private health insurance
business with Medibank Private) reportedly considered
but rejected introduction of an Australia Card style scheme.
The HIC also maintains the Australian Childhood Immunisation
Register (ACIR) and Australian Organ Donor Register, discussed
later in this profile.
next page (the
Card )
|
|
