Australia to consider ID card to fight terrorism

Reuters | July 15 2005

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia should consider introducing a national identity card in the wake of the London bombings and the rise in global terrorism, Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday.

Australia last debated a national ID card, called the Australia Card, in 1987. Howard, then in opposition, opposed the card, but now says times have changed.

"This is an issue that ought to be back on the table...in the wake of something like the terrible tragedy in London," Howard told a news conference ahead of a trip to Washington and London to discuss security and trade.

The British government in June took the first parliamentary step toward introducing identity cards to counter terrorism. The biometric ID cards, a world first, would use fingerprint, face and iris recognition to identify Britons.

The Australian newspaper reported on Friday that the conservative government's National Security Committee was examining whether tougher measures, including ID cards, were needed to close loopholes in counter-terrorism operations.

Australia is a staunch ally of the United States, sending troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and has been on medium security alert since Sept. 11, 2001.

Australia's embassy in Jakarta was bombed in 2004 and 88 Australians were killed in the 2002 Bali bombings but there has never been a major peacetime attack on home soil.

British police say the London train and bus bombings were the work of three British Muslims of Pakistani origin and a Jamaican-born Briton. Howard has said Australia could also be the target of "homegrown" suicide bombers.

Two Australian men, of Middle East and Asian origin, are to stand trial on separate charges on planning a terror attack in Sydney and compiling a "terrorist manual."

Queensland state Labor premier Peter Beattie backed an ID system, saying Australia may be forced to introduce compulsory ID cards due to global terrorism. "With what's happening with terrorism in the world, I think it's very likely," he said.

Beattie said ID cards would also prevent Australians being mistaken as illegal immigrants and detained or deported. Australia is investigating 200 cases of wrongful detention.

He said privacy concerns which stymied the Australia Card were no longer an issue because personal information was now readily available via credit cards and drivers licenses.

Identity cards are used in about a dozen European Union countries, although they are not always compulsory. Britons have not carried ID cards since they were abolished after World War II.

The British government has said that if ID cards are approved by parliament, voluntary cards would not be introduced before 2008 at the earliest and would not be made compulsory before 2013, and only then if parliament agreed.

Critics of the British ID cards say they are expensive, unnecessary and intrusive. A British study has said the cost of the ID card system could soar to 19 billion pounds ($35 billion) -- three times official estimates.

Britain's opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties say they will vote against the cards when the issue is debated again.

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