[LINK] Statement re the DHS Mega-Merger

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Roger Clarke <Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au> wrote:
> A Bill is before the Australian Parliament that merges Centrelink and
> Medicare into the portfolio agency, the Dept of Human Service (DHS).
>
> DHS lost earlier gradiose social control schemes like the Access Card
> because they were forced to let the public see what they were up to.
>
> With this one, they've dug deeper into their bag of dirty tricks in
> order to achieve zero public scrutiny.
>
> The Australian Privacy Foundation has released a Statement, at:
> http://www.privacy.org.au/Papers/DHS-Merger-110323.pdf

The DHS is also consulting on a new service charter.
http://speechbubble-blog.dhs.gov.au/
One of the principles they aim to achieve in the name of Efficiency is:
"Our goals 2011-2014
• Provide value for money by using new technology to build agile and
flexible systems and services.
• Reduce red tape so that people only have to tell us their
information once, if they choose to do so."

As I am sure the APF is aware, the rate of confirmed privacy incidents
(over 400 in the last reporting period, 80+ cases of unauthorised
access) in Centerlink alone shows no signs of decreasing:
http://www.dhs.gov.au/publications-policies-and-plans/annual-reports/centrelink/0910/chapter05/14.html