Trust critical to widespread adoption of digital ID
The Digital ID program will improve data security but gaining the public’s trust in the system will be an essential first step, says an ID verification specialist.
The federal budget on Tuesday announced the government will provide $26.9 million in the 2023–24 year to sustain and develop the next stage of the digital ID program.
The Department of Finance and the Digital Transformation Agency will be given $24.7 million to maintain the current Digital ID system and design the policy and legislative foundations to transition to an economy-wide Digital ID ecosystem with an independent regulator.
The government digital identity system is currently used by Australians to access 80 government services and the next stage of the program will expand the system to the private sector as well as state and territory services.
It is hoped the system will help reduce the administrative burden for small and medium businesses and help Australians transact end-to-end digitally.
Draft legislation to develop the program further was created in late 2021 but lapsed when the election was called.
OCR Labs general manager APAC Paul Warren-Tape said these reforms have been left too long already.
Following some of the significant data breaches in the past year, having a digital ID system to identity people in a remote sense is now a necessity, he said.
“Off the back of these breaches the Albanese government is now looking at how can prevent the need for people to present ID documents multiple times to multiple businesses and this digital identity bill will get you there,” he stated.
The expansion of the digital ID program will be a positive step in reducing the data footprint of each individual, he said, but educating consumers about the technology and getting them to trust it will be the biggest step in making the system work.
“There’s a lot of negative media when you start using words like AI and facial recognition and we have a definite role to play in decussating and building trust from a consumer basis,” he said.
It will be important that industry works hard to ensure these systems uphold strong ethics in the way they operate and that they are safe, secure and reliable.
Ensuring the system is efficient and accessible will also be key to generating strong uptake, he said.
“The system needs to be as seamless as possible so that people with a real ID who are trying to get access to the important products and services they need can get through,” he said.
“The technology might be great but if people don’t use it then they’ll always go back to the easiest kind of port, which is face to face and that tends to be prone to errors, issues and fraud,” said Mr Warren-Tape.
The rollout of the director ID scheme last year saw considerable criticism from the accounting profession with many describing the process of helping their clients to apply as “burdensome and frustrating”.
ATO figures in January revealed that half a million directors were still yet to apply for their ID, a month after the final 14 December deadline.
The difficulties encountered with the director ID process demonstrates the importance of these systems being built with a continual cycle of improvement, said Mr Warren-Tape.
“[We] need to think about what that cycle of improvement means for everyday Australians and tax agents because it they’ve used it once for the director ID sign up and it was a bit slow and clunky they may question if they want to go through that process again. The process needs to be an understanding one,” he said.
“It’s never going to be perfect but the more we use and trust these systems, the more reliable they will become as well.”
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