Breach after breach - The new norm
Have you noticed all the latest fear tactics being used to steer people into a Digital ID? There have been innumerable breaches to personal information of late, with more to come.
Additionally, we have seen Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) made the move to force all company/business owners to create a Digital ID in order to operate their company.
The reason provided for the ASIC Directors Digital ID (DDID) is to ensure that any company director who has gone bankrupt can not then re-register another company under another name (to avoid taxes and liability to employees, for example).
The creation of the DDID ensures the company director can be tracked for prosecution or financial liability.
When you register a company with ASIC currently, you need to have your myGovID and a digital AUSKEY and also be linked up to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
Why is DDID required in addition to these requirements? What will come next in linking us all up to the Digital ID?
We are informed that it is to combat and manage fraud from national and foreign companies. However, it is just another chain-link in the digital shackles of the system, with all of your online accounts, movements, financial records, medical records, and day-to-day actions, maintained in a central database and monitored.
Below are examples of what some believe to be recent strategies to create fear in the public about the threat of their personal and financial information being leaked to hackers.
Remember we are told that organisations which hold your information have strong security safeguards in place with various legislations, firewalls, and data security organisations (such as The Australian Cyber Security Centre, Australian Federal Police, Attorney Generals Department, Department of Home Affairs and others).
These safeguards seem to produce impenetrable systems when it comes to government information, yet our private information is farmed out to private vendors, and we are always the ones to be hacked? Why is this?
A run of data breaches
- MYGov Breach - South Australia 2021
- Service NSW data breach 2020
- Woolworths/My Deal and Telstra breaches 2022, see here for details
- Medibank Breach: 4 Million customers have their Medibank account details hacked and possibly their credit cards too. Medibank is a government owned health insurer. Read more on the Medibank breach here
- Toyota breach - see here
- Read about the latest four data breaches in Australia here - Reuters
Optus Breach
With the Optus breach, they are offering a 12-month subscription to an credit and identity insurance policy with Equifax Protect, underwritten by AIG.
When you read the Terms and Conditions, there is not much protection, and commonplace that your information is shared with third parties and other countries.
WHAT is the point of this policy?
"We share your information with other entities to enable them to offer their products or services to you; and government, law enforcement, dispute resolution, statutory or regulatory bodies, or as required by law.
AIG is likely to disclose information to some of these entities located overseas, including
in the following Countries: Canada, Bermuda, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, France,
Germany, United States of America, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines,
India, Hong Kong, New Zealand as well as any country in which You have a claim and such
other countries as may be notified in Our Privacy Policy from time to time."Bermuda? Isn't that where all the offshore money laundering occurs?
It appears that the policy is only to compensate you for breaches, but it does not protect your information.
Your information is shared with a host of third parties and other countries. Are we the only ones struggling to see the logic of this? What is the real reason behind Optus providing this policy besides what appears on the surface to be a form of apology?
The State governments then asked everyone who is a customer with these companies to go and update their information at their local Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
Again, is this is another method to confirm people's ID and get them onto the digital system (or perhaps a new system)? We cannot know for sure, but it does seem suspect.
The constant security breaches create fear, subtly influencing people into agreeing to a centralised digital ID system and the gathering of their personal information.
This situation raises questions as to why companies need to collect and store so much personal information, and where this will all end up regarding your right to privacy. Read more here from The Guardian:
Making Informed Choices
We should all be making informed choices before blindly shackling ourselves to the Digital ID. In this article by Brett Solomon on The Wired, rational points are made to the dangers of Digital ID abuse against civil rights.
While presented as a way to ensure the safety of your information, and perceived as a convenience, there is a dark side to Digital ID where it becomes a threat to your security, along with the as-yet-unknown factor on how the government and corporations might use your information to track and monitor you, and control your actions and access to services.
The Australia Card (which was a similar form of a centralised ID system) was overwhelmingly blocked by Australian Citizens in 1987 due to people wanting to maintain their privacy.
Nowadays, with the internet and the stealthy move to almost everything being digitally linked, people have not seen this updated version of the Australia Card coming.
Most people wish for easy convenience, which may spell danger for civil rights in relation to privacy. Read more here on the possible threats.
The timelines and long-term planning behind the Digital ID implementation can be seen in this thoroughly well-researched article by Daniel Israel from The Medium. He states, "In 2016, the organization called ID2020 was created. Note that 2020 was the year that COVID began and started coming to light."
ID2020 was the platform on which the Covid-19 Vaccination Passports were created; clearly, there was a plan for these digital passports well before Covid came along.
A very interesting aspect of ID2020 is who the main alliance partners of the project are: The founders of these organisations are fast becoming the most UNTRUSTED on the global stage as far as your wellbeing and sovereignty is concerned.
- GAVI- The Vaccine Alliance
- Microsoft
- Rockefeller Foundation (RF)
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
We cannot improve upon the research Daniel has done in shining light on the shadows of the big players, and how these groups have infiltrated governments worldwide.
You may want to re-consider your immersion into Digital ID with its many hook, line and sinker lures being offered.
