Many will recall the uproar when the concept of a national identity card, the Australia Card, was introduced by the then Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1985.
Civil libertarians went into meltdown. The card was to amalgamate government identification systems and act against tax avoidance, and health and welfare fraud. Fast forward to today. Just about every piece of information a marketer, scammer, tech savvy busybody, government agency or idly curious person could want is out there. Now the state government reveals its Service NSW app has been downloaded more than four million times, representing about 75 per cent of NSW’s adult population. The app has been used by patrons across the state for more than 117 million COVID Safe check-ins.
