Rodney Stevens

The nation is a step closer to implementing a voluntary Digital ID system after legislation on the federal government’s Digital ID bill was recently passed by the senate.

The bill, which passed with the support of several independent senators, the Jacqui Lambie Party, and the Greens, will now be debated on in the lower house in parliament’s next sitting period beginning on May 14.

Coalition senators including Matt Canavan and Gerard Rennick expressed their dissent during the senate committee process, voicing concerns about privacy, plus fears the voluntary scheme could be made compulsory.

If passed by the House of Representatives, The Digital ID bill would establish a voluntary identity verification service which builds on the existing myGovID that 10.5 million Australians use to access more than 130 government services.

Despite saying it has no plans to make the system mandatory, if the government decided to make the Digital ID compulsory, new legislation would be required to pass parliament.

Digital ID is designed to be a secure, convenient, and voluntary way to verify who you are online without having to repeatedly share your most sensitive documents, such as passport, birth certificate and driver’s licence.

The Digital ID bill will put in place legislative framework for the expansion of the government’s Digital ID system to include state and territory governments, plus the private sector and is designed to strengthen privacy and security safeguards and provide stronger regulation and governance of Digital ID services.

A Greens amendment to the bill has established “a clear obligation for service providers to have a comparable non-digital service available”.

Minister for Finance, Senator Katy Gallagher, said data breaches, such as Optus and Medibank, have shown how important it is to keep Australian’s safe online.

“Digital ID makes it safer and easier for Australians to prove who they are online,” she said.

“Australians will be sharing less personal information, which is held by fewer organisations, that are subject to stronger regulation – reducing the chance of identity theft online.”

Ms Gallagher said the system works by a user providing their ID to verify who they are.

“Then as you engage with other people that will be involved in the system – businesses, private companies, state and territory governments – you’d be able to access that, the myGov ID system, as a way of verifying who you are,” she told media.

“So, you don’t have to provide all those pieces of paper ID, or emailed ID, to all of those different providers, thereby reducing the amount that you have to share about yourself.

“Also, you control how you engage with those companies using your myGov ID system.”

If implemented, the Digital ID bill will provide a safe, secure, convenient, and reusable way for people to verify their ID online if they choose, without repeatedly sharing ID documents with different services.

The Digital ID will make it easier to access government and business services from home, benefitting regional and remote communities and people with a disability.

It will be designed to enhance privacy and reduce collection of personal information by government and private services, reducing the impact of data breaches, plus it will reduce the need for people to remember different usernames and passwords by providing a reusable Digital ID.

For more information on the Digital ID visit https://www.digitalidentity.gov.au/