This appeared last week:
Turnbull promises national digital identity, fintech committee
Government tables long-awaited response to FSI report.
The federal government has adopted the majority of recommendations made in last year's financial systems inquiry report, promising to deliver a national federated digital identity framework and a public-private sector innovation committee for the financial sector.
In its long-awaited response to the December 2014 report, tabled today [pdf], the federal government also said it would ask the Productivity Commission to review options to improve data-sharing within the sector, and remove regulatory impediments to modern product information disclosure.
By the end of next year, the government also intends to consider how to amend priority areas of regulation to make it technology neutral.
Digital identity
The FSI report, led by David Murray, highlighted a national federated digital identity as key to improving the efficiency of digital identity processes as well as to minimise the costs and regulatory burden of customer authentication for financial services firms.
Its recommendation - accepted by the government - called for the establishment of a framework under which private and public sector bodies could compete to supply digital identities.
A single minister should be given responsibility for the framework, the report suggested, and a private-public sector taskforce should develop the detail of the framework and standards.
Banks and other financial services firms are currently required to verify an individual using government-issued, paper-based credentials such as a passport or drivers license.
By introducing a national digital identity framework, reliance on paper-based mechanisms could be reduced, making the process more secure and convenient for customers and more efficient for governments and banks, the FSI report said.
It recommended the government utilise the national document verification service, the myGov service portal, the national e-authentication framework, the Finance department’s third-party identity services assurance framework, and the government’s Vanguard electronic authentication service, among others, to create the framework.
The government today said it would task its Digital Transformation Office with developing the trusted digital identity framework.
There is also some coverage here:
Orwell returns: Government promises to implement digital ID for all
- 21 October 2015
- By Stan Beer
COMMENT: After being returned to office in 1987, Prime Minister Bob Hawke triumphantly announced that he now had a mandate to introduce an ID card for all Australian residents. Such was the outcry, that Hawke backed down and talk of the card disappeared into the ether. In 2015, the Orwellian Australia Card has returned in the form of a digital ID.
Buried deep in the bowels of the 32 page Government Response to Financial System Inquiry report by former Commonwealth Bank CEO David Murray, were some chilling sentences that confirmed the Government’s intentions to figuratively stamp the biblical mark of the beast’ on every Australian residents’ foreheads.
In actual fact, the ‘mark of the beast’ happens to be a national system to implement a digital identity for all individuals, which was recommended by Murray in his report.
Here are the actual words on page 20 of the document:
Digital identity.
Develop a national strategy for a federated-style model of trusted digital identities.
The Government agrees that a national digital identity strategy will help to streamline individuals' engagement with government and provide efficiency improvements.
The Digital Transformation Office will work across government and with the private sector to develop a Trusted Digital Identity Framework to support the Government's Digital Transformation Agenda.
As is always the case with government propaganda, the words are couched in benevolent terms - ‘streamline individuals’ engagement with government’.
In actual fact, what this really means is a more convenient way for government to track and keep tabs on every single living soul residing in this country - from birth until death.
As they have in the past, proponents of the scheme may argue that if you have nothing to hide then why should you be concerned. After all, you don’t mind using your Medicare Card or Driver’s License to identify yourself.
The answer is of course that Australians are not by law required to carry either card as proof of identity or to perform transactions. In fact, we are a freedom loving people who love the freedoms that Australia has always provided and who don’t like to be presided over by authoritarian governments - especially centralised federal governments.
More here:
What is going to be very interesting is to see what the reaction to this is. Will people be thrilled or see the plan as the Australia card Mark III.
Also, if we have a digital id that we can use to move money etc. will the same id be used for health care identification for the individual?
Will be interesting to watch over the next year or so.
David.
6 comments:
There could be a hint in Australia to trial cloud passports in world-first move as to where Identity Management is drifting.
The idea of cloud passports is the result of a hipster-style-hackathon held at the Department of Foreign Affairs, which culminated in an X-Factor style audition before the secretary Peter Varghese, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, Assistant Minister Steve Ciobo and Chris Vein from the World Bank.
Financial services have made the investments, but where is Health?
A talk by Ingrid Scheffer on ABC 774 Tues evening may hint at another piece in the puzzle. At about 1:45 she says more "infrastructure support" is desperately needed (my spin) and wants "clinics to work". Even though Royal Childrens Melbourne is supposed to be on a "go live in 6 months" with EPIC I'm guessing the current mechanism for booking patients in to the next OP clinic starts with the specialists passing notes on pieces of paper to the clinic clerks.
Dedicated, high-profile clinicians in the public system are like gold, and if Scheffer isn't already welded into their development path, then heaven help EPIC and RCH. I mean, if the booking "solution" involves Scheffer spending more of her time sitting at a terminal ...
If the RCH Chief hadn't heard of Scheffer's concerns before Tues night, then the "go live" is on a rocky road.
ANZ’s CTO blasts national federated digital identity plans
http://www.governmentnews.com.au/2015/10/anzs-cto-blasts-national-federated-digital-identity-plans/
A passport is a form of ID. If you store passport details in the cloud you'll still need some form of ID.
I was at a security presentation the other day and the guy said that biometrics as ID was a bad idea. If your PIN or password or two factor authentication mechanism is compromised you can easily change it. Try changing your biometrics......
To authenticate with passport in cloud - biometrics, facial recognition - ginormous databases of each????
If you get the chance, watch the series Hunted, recently on UK Channel 4.
It gives a terrifying insight into how much data "investigators" can get on a range of individuals - from CCTV and facial and number plate recognition systems, your own FB and that of four friends, along with long-forgotten online data about where you had a camping holiday once
The aim is for 14 separate parties to try to evade "capture" for 28 days, by travelling around the UK, as a specialist team works to stop them one by one
They all ditch mobiles and using ATMs on day one, but it doesn't matter
Yet the authorities still want more powers?
Proprietors of cloud-based identity & authentication management systems may be busy knocking at ministerial doors in Canberra. Would be interesting to see the logs at receptionists desks.
Bruce Schneier in Weaknesses in the PLAID Protocol links to cryptographic work that surely has profound implications, if PLAID is still alive.
Imagining the voice from behind the ministerial desk, along the lines of "Well, we tried to grow our own and it tanked. So, take this pile of brochures and pick the best. Don't be influenced by my sticky-note on the one from ****, nor by your career prospects under our Free Trade agreements."
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