Smartraveller being re-launched. Re-subscription required

[trippin_the_rift]

Immigration already has a database of those inside/outside Australia.
When you leave, a record is made of what country you're travelling to.
When your passport is scanned when entering a country, Australia gets pinged.

Australia already knows where you are, and who you are!

 

[get me outta here]

They may know which country you are in ... but that's not very precise.

Immigration already has a database of those inside/outside Australia.
When you leave, a record is made of what country you're travelling to.
When your passport is scanned when entering a country, Australia gets pinged.

Australia already knows where you are, and who you are!

 

[RooFlyer]

When your passport is scanned when entering a country, Australia gets pinged.

Does it? How does that work? The country being entered would have to set up the alert.

Australia already knows where you are, and who you are!

'Where' within a thousand or so kilometres! The EU Schengen zone is a big place. Canada is bigger ... as is Russia! An earthquake on the USA west cost is not relevant to me if I'm in New York. Ditto a tsunami on the Indian west coast if I'm in Calcutta etc etc etc.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Mobile phones
Tablets/wifi
Bank cards

Not too difficult to track someone these days.

I mean - do we really want the AU Gov to know EXACTLY where we are ALL the time?

 

[RooFlyer]

Not too difficult to track someone these days.

I mean - do we really want the AU Gov to know EXACTLY where we are ALL the time?

Not sure what you are suggesting. We give up credit cards etc to conceal our location from the government?

Personally, I couldn’t give two hoots whether the government knows where I am at any given moment, around the globe, or not. “Red alert. That RooFlyer guy is heading into another mosque in Samarkand.”

But if I’m caught up in some sort of overseas disaster, and I need help, I’d like someone to know. And If I’m not pre registered, when a disaster hits and I’m there, how will DFAT know to track me via my credit card etc?

 

[trippin_the_rift]

...

But if I’m caught up in some sort of overseas disaster, and I need help, I’d like someone to know. And If I’m not pre registered, when a disaster hits and I’m there, how will DFAT know to track me via my credit card etc?

If I recall correctly.... AU Gov contacted the banks after 2004 tsunamis to know who they needed to contact.

 

[PineappleSkip]

Immigration already has a database of those inside/outside Australia.
When you leave, a record is made of what country you're travelling to.
When your passport is scanned when entering a country, Australia gets pinged.

Australia already knows where you are, and who you are!

FFS. I respect your fine opinions mostly, but you wouldn’t make these claims if you spent more time in third world countries. Australia knows who I am, but unless the legacy record from my registration still exists, it has no idea where I am.

The immigration database is reliable for tracking arrivals and departures from Australia. It scanned my passport when I left a couple weeks ago and it might gave logged me travelling out on my first ticket, but no further. There would have been a record of my main destination once, but departure cards have been scrapped.

Right now I’m in a ‘do not travel’ country again, helping the locals compile the most basic of records, and I can assure you that the systems at the only airport here are connected to nowhere, and often fail to function at all. Like everything else. Every time I’ve been in a crisis in one of these places, the internet and the phone system have gone belly up in no time.

Mate, out here, the ‘log on and register’ crisis advice is a f&$#ing joke.

Cheers skip

 

[Scarlett]

Mobile phones
Tablets/wifi
Bank cards

Not too difficult to track someone these days.

Trippin you know a lot of very useful things about AFF life and you deal with big data, I get it, but in this one you might need to go and get a tinfoil hat. Or stop watching 'Enemy of the State' so often...

Firstly, the Govt must understand the scale of the problem in the affected country.
Then, court orders. Lots of court orders. Lots of speculative court orders...in Australia.
Then, you're assuming those court orders carry weight in another country. The same country dealing with the natural disaster.

Much simpler to have the traveller themselves pre-populate a database of which cities they're going to be in and the dates of such.

 

[RooFlyer]

If I recall correctly.... AU Gov contacted the banks after 2004 tsunamis to know who they needed to contact.

So every time there's an incident somewhere in the world, the Aust Govt polls the banks to see where all their what, 20 million cc account holders appear to be at the time? Ditto the phone companies - maybe 25 million business and personal phone accounts?

What, if you were in earthquake-prone Iran, where you can't use your credit card, and its cash-only? Or like me, you don't activate your phone overseas except for a local sim, or I'm in Turkmenistan, like I was a month ago, and Telstra doesn't include that network? There are a number of such countries.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Trippin you know a lot of very useful things about AFF life and you deal with big data, I get it, but in this one you might need to go and get a tinfoil hat. Or stop watching 'Enemy of the State' so often...

Firstly, the Govt must understand the scale of the problem in the affected country.
Then, court orders. Lots of court orders. Lots of speculative court orders...in Australia.
Then, you're assuming those court orders carry weight in another country. The same country dealing with the natural disaster.

Much simpler to have the traveller themselves pre-populate a database of which cities they're going to be in and the dates of such.

But that's my favourite movie to watch in my led-insulated bunker which is off the grid!

Court orders? That's soo 1990.

Even Qantas - right now - at this very point in time - knows exactly where you are in your office. Qantas has the ability to tell when you leave work, HOW you get home (drive/car/train/walk...), WHERE you live, how long you sleep for, when you wake up, how long you spend with the "old school friend" on weekends... you get the idea.

Commercial enterprises ALREADY, and for MANY YEARS have been able to track individuals on a granular level.

Governments have one level-up. GODMODE on your life.

Want to know more... this interview with Edward Snowden tells a lot:

 

[RooFlyer]

Even Qantas - right now - at this very point in time - knows exactly where you are in your office. Qantas has the ability to tell when you leave work, HOW you get home (drive/car/train/walk...), WHERE you live, how long you sleep for, when you wake up, how long you spend with the "old school friend" on weekends... you get the idea.

Commercial enterprises ALREADY, and for MANY YEARS have been able to track individuals on a granular level.

Yeah, I’ve heard all that before. I bet they don’t know as much about me as you think. A lot maybe, but not the brand of hair restorer I use.

So when I arrive at DOH, turn my phone off, board my flight and arrive in Ashgabat, no phone or internet service, cash only, then drive for four weeks across countries on my Kazakh passport, same conditions, hotels booked by someone else, where am I on day 25? How much sleep did I get on day 7?

Real question from one of your posts above. How does the Australian government get a ‘ping’ from foreign countries when I cross their border if I use my Oz passport?

 

[PineappleSkip]

Well it’s November already, and nothing appears to have changed on smartraveller yet.

Cheers skip

 

[trippin_the_rift]

...

Right now I’m in a ‘do not travel’ country again, helping the locals compile the most basic of records, and I can assure you that the systems at the only airport here are connected to nowhere, and often fail to function at all. Like everything else. Every time I’ve been in a crisis in one of these places, the internet and the phone system have gone belly up in no time.

Mate, out here, the ‘log on and register’ crisis advice is a f&$#ing joke.

Cheers skip

Props to you for continuing your service to others.

You raise a good point and got me thinking - how is any Gov supposed to contact you if a disaster were to strike in that region? I mean even if you register with smart traveller and they know Pineapple is in XX country. What would the AU Gov do? I'm about 99% sure they don't send a search and rescue team. Even if they did, where to start? Would those people be allowed in the country (assuming it would be military). I could be wrong, but if AU flags a country as 'do not travel' it may mean they don't have sufficient means to help Australians in that country should things go wrong.

How would you fix the system?

Yeah, I’ve heard all that before. I bet they don’t know as much about me as you think. A lot maybe, but not the brand of hair restorer I use.

So when I arrive at DOH, turn my phone off, board my flight and arrive in Ashgabat, no phone or internet service, cash only, then drive for four weeks across countries on my Kazakh passport, same conditions, hotels booked by someone else, where am I on day 25? How much sleep did I get on day 7?

Real question from one of your posts above. How does the Australian government get a ‘ping’ from foreign countries when I cross their border if I use my Oz passport?

DAmmit, I was tracking you just fine up till day 24. Then you used a brand of hair restorer I wasn't expecting and messed it all up.

 

[RooFlyer]

What would the AU Gov do?

(I know you didn't direct these questions to me, but FWIW): How it should work, and I think has done, in various degrees of practice ... If, say there was an earthquake in Tajikistan (and there have been some crackers!) and they knew or reasonably suspected there were Australian citizens in the country, the first think I would expect them to do is to try and contact the people direct via the details they had pre-registered with SmartTraveller (stay with me ...). At the same time, the embassy who looks after Tajikistan (Russia) would work with the Tajik government in identifying Australians, probably by sending someone there for liaison. In places like the 'Stans, all visitors are registered with passport details taken at every hotel stay.

All depends on the severity of the incident of course. Bali bombing brought out major resources ex Oz. Judging by the tour I went on, and who was on it and their frequency, and the other like tours, I'd guess there could be at least 200 Australians in Tajikistan at any one time for non-winter months. Its 90% mountains, so comms in a disaster will be slow.

How would you fix the system?

I wouldn't have changed the pre-registration system. I know I travel at my own risk, and I take all reasonable precautions, but if the poo hits the fan I do expect my government to make reasonable efforts to see that I'm OK. I have always filled out the bloody Smarttraveller rego form, in all its gory detail.

Oh, something I meant to say before. If the likes of Qantas are so good with the 'big data' stuff, and happily track me, know my shopping wants etc down to the last follicle, how come when I have a flight out of my QFF-registered home port of Hobart, Qantas serves me ads for hotels in Hobart?

 

[woodborer]

Pinging Banks and Telephone companies for a 'who has recently been in an area' list is probably more accurate than what people record.

 

[Spongbob]

Now that I think of it, when I travel to another country I inform my credit card issuing banks about my plans.

 

[wandering_fred]

And then there is the fun and games of "dual nationals". You leave Australia on the Australian PP. But what and where is next?

Just wandering
Fred

 

[PineappleSkip]

You raise a good point and got me thinking - how is any Gov supposed to contact you if a disaster were to strike in that region? I mean even if you register with smart traveller and they know Pineapple is in XX country. What would the AU Gov do? I'm about 99% sure they don't send a search and rescue team. Even if they did, where to start? Would those people be allowed in the country (assuming it would be military). I could be wrong, but if AU flags a country as 'do not travel' it may mean they don't have sufficient means to help Australians in that country should things go wrong.

How would you fix the system?

I wouldn't have changed the pre-registration system. I know I travel at my own risk, and I take all reasonable precautions, but if the poo hits the fan I do expect my government to make reasonable efforts to see that I'm OK. I have always filled out the bloody Smarttraveller rego form, in all its gory detail.

What @RooFlyer said!

No, AU won’t usually send a search and rescue team, but we and other countries go to remarkable lengths to extract their nationals in dire situations, despite all the disclaimers. The victims usually aren’t tourists, because only rare and foolhardy tourists come to such places, A couple of examples from my favourite stan

Taliban-professor swap
Australian aid worker freed

What can be done depends on the circumstances, but I have no doubt that there will be plans in place for the usual suss locations. If Australia is not in the relevant country, and often it isn’t, someone else will be representing us, but we’ll have input. People are mostly in ’do not travel’ places to support the efforts of the ‘good guys’ governments to instil sanity in insane places. When things go to cough, being in place, helping such governments will help get you out, and I’d be reasonably confident we’d be in the choppers along with the precious diplomats. Or more likely behind them

Suspect the system is being changed because the data was cough anyway, people who fail to register, people who change their plans but not their registration, and so on. Ironically, the data is likely a lot better in the wonderful world of ‘do not travel’ where people routinely register (it’s a contract requirement for moi) and bad things are more likely.

How to fix the system? Dunno, don’t have the data. Abandoning it seems a cheapjack, failure solution. The big advantage of the old system was existing data in place, meaning responsiveness, and a more immediate handle on who needed to be accounted for.

Oh, and totally agree about the Americans in particular having an excellent handle on who is where in suspect countries, but their data is collected for different reasons, and I wouldn’t expect it to necessarily get to consular staff in other countries. Governments impose endless restrictions on their own agencies about data sharing, doubly so for classified data.

(Sorry about delay in responding, last minute third world cough)

Cheers skip

 

[PineappleSkip]

Well, the ‘new’ smartraveller has now gone live, with FWIW an explanation of the removal of registration.

We know from the experience of managing crises over this time, that the most comprehensive and reliable information we receive on the whereabouts and welfare of Australians in a crisis is what we get from you and your family, friends, employers, travel agents or tour operators when something happens. Very rarely if ever was the pre-registered data helpful to our crisis response. In fact, it often diverted our resources when they were most stretched from those who needed our help.

The language has been dumbed down in the travel advisories. Don’t recall the ‘local emergency contacts’ section, possibly it has been moved up, but for my favourite ‘do not travel’ countries, the list starts with ‘family and friends‘. I’ll write that down . Consular assistance is at the very end, but I can kind of understand that, given the dumb reasons people ring their embassy.

Cheers skip

 

[Hvr]

I wonder if this is now seen as a good move?