The leader of Australia's One Nation party has said that a biometrics-backed national ID card would help reduce benefit fraud.Senator Pauline Hanson believes that an ID card system unlocked by a fingerprint is necessary to put an end to welfare fraud, as listed on her party's website."Australians have always been very protective of their identity and concerned about big brother watching. Now is the time for us to consider introducing secure identification that cannot be stolen by others to defraud our welfare, medical, schools, pharmaceutical benefits and any other taxpayer funded service," a policy letter reads.Senator Hanson suggested the current system is too easily manipulated, especially by relatives of people relocating to Australia, the Courier Mail reports."There's a lot of aliases out there and a lot of people are simply using their relatives' Medicare cards when they come to Australia and that gets billed to the taxpayer. It's common sense. People should need ID if they want to access welfare," she said.Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has reportedly not ruled out the proposal but it also considering other forms of updated technology that will allow multiple government departments to update client information in real like to prevent double dipping and fraud.
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