Tim Dower: Although I have nothing to hide, I may have something to fear

There's a saying about having nothing to fear, as long as you have nothing to hide.
It's been used to justify increasingly intrusive data gathering, especially by government departments, and various infringements on our personal privacy.
Crustier listeners this morning will remember the fuss over digitised photos on our driving licences.
in the day that was pretty controversial, your driving licence becoming a de facto identity card.
It would prevent fraud and stop people stealing our identities, so, we went along with it.
Four years ago the police got live access to that system, mmm, seems logical. They should be able to check you are who you say you are, so, OK.
Now there's a further extension of that; bringing in the Department of Internal Affairs so it can access drivers' photos.
But the Transport Agency says oh, this is just so the DIA can use the licence photo to verify a person's identity, and only if the person agrees to it.
And it denies there's been any kind of data dump of images to Internal Affairs or any other government agency.
Oh, OK.
But what is happening, and there's legislation in the pipeline, is a project to build an all-of-government digital identity system.
So, Inland Revenue, Social Welfare, the Health Ministry and Immigration all with access to one very big database...and your photo.
Still comfortable with that?
All sorts of promises are being made about data security, but how many times have databases leaked or been raided in the past? Too many times.
I'm by no means a conspiracy theorist, and I'm a law abiding taxpayer, so I don't think I have anything to hide.
But I'm beginning to think I may have something to fear.

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