Australian Muslim women must show faces for identity checks under new law [View all]

Muslim women in the Australian state of New South Wales will be required to show their faces when they have documents witnessed under new identity check laws.

The laws – due to come into force on 30 April – will apply to statutory declarations and affidavits and cover anything that conceals a person's face, including motorcycle helmets, masks, veils, burqas or niqabs.

It follows a court case in which a woman wearing a burqa had a six-month jail sentence overturned on appeal last year because of doubts about her identity.

Carnita Matthews, 47, was originally convicted of falsely accusing a police officer of trying to remove her burqa during a random breath test. The conviction was overturned on appeal because the woman who made the complaint was wearing a burqa, making it impossible to tell whether it was Matthews.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/05/australian-muslim-women-identity-checks

my take: Religion is an individual choice. Functions of the commons such as getting picture IDs shouldn't accommodate religious exemptions.