[LINK] Access Card Briefing, Sydney, 13 December 2006

[Tom Worthington]

The Australian Government's Office of the Access Card 
<http://humanservices.gov.au/access-card.htm> (also known as the 
Government Smart card or Health Card) will hold a Consumer and 
Privacy Briefing 
<http://www.accesscard.gov.au/media/hockey_announces_access_card_briefings.html> 
on 13 December 2006:

"... three main aims.

     * Inform the IT industry about the project prior to tenders 
being released.
     * Provide privacy and consumer advocates with further details 
about the project.
     * Release an exposure draft of the access card legislation for 
public consultation."

Also the Government's response 
<http://www.accesscard.gov.au/various/government_response_to_taskforce_report.pdf> 
to the Consumer and Privacy Taskforce Report on the Architecture of 
the card has been released, with a brochure on the Access Card. The 
report is called: "Issues and Recommendations in Relation to 
Architecture Questions of the Access Card" 
<http://www.accesscard.gov.au/various/Consumer_privacy_rp2.pdf>.

The Government's response is a model of brevity being only 59kbytes 
of PDF, compared to the report's 1.83mb. The original KPMG Access 
Card Business Case is still available on the Office of the Access 
Card publications page <http://www.accesscard.gov.au/publications.html>.

There is also a web address for public information about the Access 
Card, in accordance with the Government web branding policy. This 
also has an RSS Feed: <http://www.australia.gov.au/accesscard>.

ps: The Government has responded to criticism of the project 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/smartcard/>, by increasing 
safeguards and decreasing its scope. But assurances as to the proper 
running of the system are less credible after the Office of the 
Access Card sent out the wrong attachment with their invitation to 
the briefing. If they have trouble working e-mail, how will they go 
with a highly complex access card system?  ;-)



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd           ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au                PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617