Australia’s Department of Finance has set July 1st as the tentative launch date of the country’s planned digital ID system.
Speaking to ChannelNews Australia, officials downplayed concerns about the federal digital ID system overlapping with those of state governments like New South Wales and Victoria. “Our intent is for a person to be able to choose a Digital ID provider, set-up their Digital ID and then use it when and where they choose, to access private and public sector services,” an official explained.
Australia Post, Mastercard, and OCR Labs have been accredited as providers of “digital ID services”, while Australia Payments Plus has been accredited as an “exchange” for checking identity credentials, according to ChannelNews. Australia Payments Plus is a joint venture formed by the consolidation of three important Australian payment services: Bpay, eftpos, and the New Payments Platform Australia (NPP Australia).
Department of Finance officials say that three levels of security will be established for the digital ID program, with the highest requiring the use of facial recognition to compare a live selfie of an end user to their passport or driver’s license. This initial selfie-based identity verification process should only need to be done once, according to the officials.
The Department of Finance took over responsibility for the digital ID project from the country’s Digital Transformation Agency last summer, shortly after the government’s announcement of a “National Strategy for Identity Resilience” that emphasized the importance of digital identity and biometrics in Australia’s digital infrastructure. Just a couple of weeks later, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher told an audience at the Australian Financial Review’s Government Services Summit that she was hoping to roll out the new digital ID system by the middle of 2024, though she acknowledged that was “a pretty tight timeframe”.
Talks between different levels of government are ongoing, and draft legislation establishing the digital ID has yet to receive final approval.
Source: ChannelNews Australia
–
February 2, 2024 – by Alex Perala
Follow Us