ROTHENBURGER — I don’t like being told what to do by the government

COLUMN — I happened to be in the dinner lineup with the minister of health at a fundraising event last night, so I asked him about a letter I received yesterday from the government.

Once again, the government was telling me what to do. In this case, Health Insurance B.C. was informing me I must take action. I must replace my CareCard with a B.C. Services Card. I must have my photo taken for this card. I am “legally obligated” to renew my MSP and get this card by Feb. 10, 2018.

I don’t like being told what to do by the government, especially when it involves storing my personal information. They aren’t good at it. They lose things in buses. They send computers out for servicing and health records disappear. They screw up car insurance premiums.

So, say it ain’t so, I said to the minister. Alas, the minister confirmed that I must get a B.C. Services Card if I want MSP.

When the card was rolled out a couple of years ago, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association said it is part of a move to “aggregate the personal information of citizens held in discrete government databases for maximal data linking and sharing across government jurisdictions and with the private sector.” It wrote of “the well-known risk of security breaches associated with such identity systems.”

The Information and Privacy Commissioner called for public consultation before it went ahead. Elizabeth Denham said she was “deeply concerned” about the lack of consultation with the public.

“The B.C. Services Card program raises significant concerns regarding misuse of personal data, such as unauthorized access, profiling and function creep,” she said.

But later, last April, she was complimenting the government or its “fulsome” public consultation. The worries about the card seem to have waned.

The government says the card is secure, and contains no personal information on its chip. Yet it’s touted as becoming a be-all ID card not only for health services but driver’s licences, online voter registration, criminal records checks, maybe even to ride the bus.

We usually associate mandatory identification cards with regimes less democratic than our own. Are we about to join the likes of China, North Korea, Russia and Turkey?

This new card must be renewed every five years. If I don’t want it combined with my driver’s licence, I must apply for a separate one. But, according to the letter the government sent me, it’s all about convenience. “The new card is being introduced to improve consumer convenience, patient safety and reduce card misuse,” it says.

They’re even saying the card increases security. I don’t quite see how such a card not only protects my privacy, but increases it. People shouldn’t have to carry around government-issued photo ID cards, especially a government with such a lousy record of keeping people’s personal information secret.

If I have anything to say about it, I won’t sign up for this card. But then, I guess I don’t have anything to say about it. I’ll just have to hope the government is getting better at not losing stuff.

Mel Rothenburger can be contacted at armchairmayor@gmail.com. He tweets @melrothenburger, and is on Facebook/mrothenburger.7.