[LINK] Contract signed for national health ID system

[Geoffrey Ramadan]

Craig Sanders wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 12, 2008 at 05:24:49PM +1100, Stephen Wilson wrote:
>> Holy innumeracy!
>>
>> A "$51 billion contract" would match the annual expenditure of the entire 
>> Australian health sector.
> 
> yes, well, stuff like that shouldn't surprise anyone.
> 
> e.g the vic govt is replacing the current public transport ticketing
> system with a new smart card system, at a cost of $500M - half a billion
> dollars! and the only "advantage" it has over the existing tickets is
> that it allows them to track who travelled where, and when and how often
> (and, by inference, who with).  in theory, it will eventually allow
> travellers to also purchase other items with the card.
> 
> YASIC - Yet Another Stealth Identity Card.


The new Victorian ticketing system is based on a MIFARE payment technology.

It will use both paper based tickets and reloadable cards.

It is an anonymous electronic payment system. There is no user identification 
and therefore nothing to link the card to the purchaser.

However, I do understand you can optionally register the "Card ID" number, so in 
the case you loose your card, instead of loosing your "cash", you can transfer 
to the funds to a new card.

Note that a number of banks will be introducing MIFARE based systems this year.

Regards

Geoffrey Ramadan, B.E.(Elec)
Chairman, Automatic Data Capture Australia (www.adca.com.au)
and
Managing Director, Unique Micro Design (www.umd.com.au)


> 
> and, of course, it's another opportunity for corporate welfare.  which
> is why we pay taxes, after all.
> 
> obviously, it has never occurred to anyone in govt that there are much
> better things to spend half a billion dollars on, even without looking
> outside the public transport system.
> 
> craig
>