Federal budget window dressing has gone into overdrive, with Minister for Finance and the Public Service Katy Gallagher revealing Australia’s now legislated government-issued digital ID scheme has scored a further $288.1 million over the forward estimates to finally bring it to life.
Citing the continuation of major data breaches and, specifically, the hit on Clubs NSW, federal agencies are prioritising the implementation of the technology as a way to remove vast honeypots of vulnerable, personally identifiable information held by organisations and businesses as part of their know-your-customer compliance.
The Australian Taxation Office is the biggest winner, scoring $155 million over two years to continue operating myGovID and its attendant Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM) for business access.
Significantly, there is also funding for the piloting of a digital wallet issued by the government that further challenges the commercial-use case for banks or other issuers of payment cards and digital instruments like certificates and passes.
According to the funding commitment, there is “$23.4 million over two years for the ATO, Finance and Services Australia to pilot the use of government digital wallets and verifiable credentials.”
The creation of a federal wallet and attendant app has major implications for states looking at developing their own systems because it means they could piggyback on the architecture used by the feds. Increasingly, it looks like the federal digital wallet will be borrowed or at a minimum inspired by the NSW model left behind by former NSW minister for digital and customer service Victor Dominello.
Dominello is now an adviser on digital matters to the federal government, and the sweep of Labor governments across the eastern seaboard makes it politically opportune to align identity and credential regimes for future interoperability, one of the things the Federation model was actually intended to accomplish.
As is its wont, Finance has also made a major grab to cement its role in the digital ID ecosystem “to continue policy leadership and governance of the Digital ID program”, although it’s still a little unclear whether this will or won’t involve the subsuming of the Digital Transformation Agency in its entirety to let the Albanese government put its own imprimatur on the government’s digital agenda.
The national security considerations of the digital ID scheme are also being funded, with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation “to provide security assessments of entities seeking accreditation or participation in the Australian Government Digital ID System.”
That means banks and international card schemes will need to have their staff vetted by the domestic spy agency, with quiet funding almost certainly provided to the Australian Signals Directorate-grade talent to pen-test and secure platforms.
Other funding amounts revealed include $11.0 million over four years for the Attorney-General’s Department “to further enhance the existing Credential Protection Register to support individuals manage their own identity credential and protect against identity crime”, while Treasury gets $7.8 million over two years “to support the data standards function to be established under Digital ID legislation.”
The fact that the latter sum has been given to Treasury rather than Finance suggests the government is again leaning into the idea that it may be possible to have persistent near-time taxation compliance for large sections of the population, potentially eliminating the need for many people with simple tax affairs to lodge a tax return.
There’s also a $5.6 million boost to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner “to provide privacy oversight under Digital ID legislation” over the next financial year.
Further out, there’s an as yet unspecified pot of money to “fund pilots to explore new use cases, including issuing government verifiable credentials to a user’s digital wallet.”
“The pilots will include an expression of interest process for businesses interested in testing use cases between government and the private sector,” the funding announcement from Gallagher said.
While the government has clearly funded and prioritised the building of its own digital wallet first, it still needs to find a way to extend use cases in areas that federal authorities typically have little interest in regulating or funding, like tradie credentials and qualifications between states, concessional entitlement and eligibility and age verification for licensing purposes.
That said, the federal authorities could soon be prevailed upon to use age verification for access to social media and restricted content because electronic media regulation sits squarely with Canberra.
Small businesses subject to Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML-CTF) are also cited as a potential use case
“The recent data breach across NSW and the ACT involving customer information from licensed clubs shows how important it is to help Australians reduce the risk of identity theft,” Gallagher said.
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Government moves on identity theft risks, revamps privacy framework for digital age
