Using a Digital ID can reduce the amount of information that businesses and government need to hold and reduce the need to repeatedly share copies of our ID documents.
Digital ID works by digitally verifying a person against their existing ID documents such as a passport or driver licence.
The Australian Government Digital ID System is up and running now. The Government’s Digital ID solution, myGovID, already has approximately 10.5 million accounts and can be used across more than 130 Commonwealth, state and territory services.
Expanding Australia’s Digital ID System is intended to deliver benefits economy-wide. From reducing the risk of identity theft, to enhancing privacy by limiting how much information we share and saving businesses time by making it simpler and easier to verify someone’s ID.
To support this expansion and embed enforceable privacy and security protections, the Commonwealth Government introduced the Digital ID Bill 2023 and the Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023 to the Australian Parliament late last year.
These Bills will specifically enable:
- a voluntary accreditation scheme for Digital ID service providers operating across the economy
- expansion of the Australian Government Digital ID System to include more state and territory, and over time, private sector services and Digital ID service providers
- enhanced privacy safeguards for accredited Digital ID service providers, with additional safeguards across the Australian Government Digital ID System
- an independent Digital ID Regulator (initially the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) and an expanded privacy oversight role for the Information Commissioner.
The Bills are currently before the Senate and subject to an inquiry by the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, which is due to report by 28 February 2024.
