Our private world

Most of us regard the right to personal privacy as one of our basic rights.
We Australians, for example, protest every time a politician dares suggest that a National Identity card might be a good idea – no matter that our credit card, driver's licence, and the rest of the plastic we carry in our wallet or purse already carry (in composite at least) all the data that any tyrant or “crook” might desire.
We're so keen to maintain our own imagined state of privacy we choose not to see the benefits.
Years ago, I felt near enough to a “non person” for about three weeks, after I'd lost my wallet with all of my ID (including driver's licence), inter-state and far from home. We had to wait in a Dubbo caravan park while the wheels of our S.Australian authority ground slowly on.
But it could have been much worse. While I'd lost all of my own identification, my wife had a Medicare card that carried both our names, and a photocopy of that was sufficient to prove to the licencing people that I was “me”. How long would our stay have lasted except for that card?
I think that “personal privacy” is really a myth. The Taxation department and at least half a dozen State and Federal government departments know almost all there is about our finances; the management of scores of businesses and computer software companies with whom we've done business know lots about our buying habits and preferences, and there's a “ton” of stuff about us on the Internet, of course. But “who cares?”.
I have nothing I need to hide from the authorities, and I can see lots of benefits from carrying a card that will prove that I'm really me and, under normal circumstances, I reckon my driver's licence does the job already.
In the meantime, real privacy means taking care about restricting access to manipulation of our assets, wherever they may be. That's why we have locks on doors, and passwords on the internet.

PS. I found my wallet the day my new licence arrived . . . . It had fallen down behind the TV set in the corner of our caravan!