Mr. Liam Herrick:

The question about passports is central. The Minister and the Department are asserting that there is something special about the safe level two identification and authentication and that it is materially preferable to the existing safe level one system, which includes passports. They need to demonstrate how it is more secure than the passport system but I do not believe they have done so.

Our passport system has very high integrity, as the Senator correctly said, and it is internationally regarded as of a high standard. Of course, there are potential instances of breach or fraud from time to time, but one would have to be able to show that there is something special about this card system that will eliminate the types of risks we currently have with the passport system and that is not the case. On the other hand, we are opening a new level of risks in terms of the possible consequences of breaches of the security of such a system. The Indian example is a cautionary tale in this regard. Simon McGarr mentioned the new scale and level of risks from a legal perspective, but we are talking primarily from an individual privacy perspective. We do not believe the case has been made to make this necessary. There is also particularly valuable biometric data from a criminal perspective in terms of being able to access that with regard to potential personation or fraud down the line.

Finally, on the theme of fraud, one of the public policy justifications put forward by the Department is the public policy objective of eliminating social welfare fraud. We have had a consistent problem with overstatement of the problem of social welfare fraud in this country. However, one thing we do know about social welfare fraud is that personation is a minority element in the overall number of fraud cases. Generally, fraud in the social welfare context tends to be about the status, circumstances or activities of an individual, such as a person claiming to be disabled or the person not working when he or she is working or is able to work, rather than people impersonating other people. Even if this was an effective mechanism to eliminate personation in the social welfare system, it is likely that it is a tiny proportion of what is already quite a small overall financial fraud on the State. It is certainly something that cannot justify the expenditure or the extension of interference in privacy of the scale we are seeing.