Victoria's Privacy Commissioner says more questions need to be answered before the government introduces a smartcard for most Australians.
The government has committed one-billion dollars for the development and introduction of the card, aimed at carrying information for government service providers like Medicare and Centrelink.
But Paul Chadwick says the government needs to tell the public what information will be on the card, who will have access to the information, and what safeguards will be in place.
Mr Chadwick says until a series of questions are answered he will reserve his support for the card.
“We will need to be sure that the data is held securely and only those who get access have authorisation. The Privacy Commissioner said.
“And that they only use the data for the authorised purposes, because it's going to be a very powerful system containing a lot of quite sensitive information about most Australians.”