Australia is often held up as an example of a country where the threat of Big Brother was beaten off once and for all. Now it looks likely to re-emerge.
ABC reports Steven Fitzgerald, General Manager of Operations from the Sydney Airport Corporation, giving evidence to the Committee into Aviation Security. The Committee was critical of Sydney airport’s own security record and questioning Fitzgerald about plans to tighten up.
Fitzgerald admitted he had discussed the idea of a national passenger profiling database with the Federal Government.
The last few lines of the transcript are of relevance to British readers and others in Commonwealth countries:
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Sounds very Big Brother-ish.
STEVEN FITZGERALD: It’s? I think, that’s an issue that really is one for the Commonwealth and not private sector airports at this at this point.
COMMITTEE MEMBER: Have there been discussions with them about it?
STEVEN FITZGERALD: It has been discussed in terms of the broad and, I’ll have to say, confidential discussions that we have about the range of, of issues that are being considered around the world.
“Confidential”. Or “secret”, depending on how much you trust the people involved.
I’m not sure I would agree that Big Brother necessarily was fought off once and for all. Certainly, though, ID cards themselves were defeated for the next few years at least. That hasn’t stopped governments building databases of information about citizens, however.