I remember reading a science-fiction book written in the early 1980s that predicted this move and the resulting loss of freedoms that would result from it -- although I long ago forgot the author and even the title -- and all I can say is that this is PRECISELY what an authoritarian-minded government would do.
It's just an extra bit of irony that in Australia and the United States it's being pushed by the Left . . . that purports to CARE about people.