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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the Trust-us-with-your-data-we-are-the-government dept.

The Australian government has planned to undertake a trial for facial recognition for MyGov, its online portal for accessing government services including Medicare, PBS and welfare. Reports indicate that in the future people may have to provide facial biometric information to access the MyGov system. The Australian government is battling to bring its services online with the majority of the public resisting the move away from traditional services. Given the hundreds of millions of accounts hacked in recent years it is no surprise that the public may be hesitant to have their private information made available on the internet.

With the Australian government looking to upload millions of records to its failing MyHealth system later this year perhaps any attempt to improve the security of its failed central logon system will improve trust in government agency services, but do users want their biometric data linked to their government online ID? With tens of thousands of people taking to online forums voicing their unhappiness with MyGov and in particular troubles with connectivity at tax time using the substandard replacement for eTax, now rebranded as myTax and forcing users to go through MyGov to connect, how much longer can the Australian government continue this? How long until their honeypot is cracked open like the Indian system was resulting in fingerprints, retina scans, names, addresses, and phone numbers being sold online like candy?


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @01:05PM (#702523)

    It's happening in India right now with their system. You can buy anyone's ID info for around $10. Even get a copy of their ID printed. Guess they should have fixed the rampant fraud in their system before loading it up with photos, fingerprints and biometrics.

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