The Department of Finance’s Digital ID and Data Policy Division is progressing a national, economy-wide Digital ID System that provides Australians with a voluntary, secure, convenient, and inclusive way of verifying their identity online.
Using a Digital ID reduces the unnecessary collection of identity information, compared to the traditional ‘100-point ID check’ where people provide physical copies of their identity documents over and over.
This also reduces the risk and subsequent impacts of data breaches involving ID information, such as the past Medibank, Optus and Latitude breaches which have impacted millions of Australians.
With their consent, Digital ID allows users to verify their existing ID documents online against the official record held by various government agencies. No centralised database is created, and no additional types of personal information are used to create a Digital ID.
Digital ID is one of the ways the Government is responding to the increase in third party data breaches, alongside the National Strategy on Identity Resilience, funding for the ACCC’s National Anti-scam Centre, the introduction of the Identity Verification Services Act 2023, continued reforms to the Privacy Act and the Government’s Cyber Security Strategy 2023-2030.
Security is one of the foundational principles of Australia’s Digital ID System. There are strong protections in the Digital ID Act 2024 to ensure that people’s personal information is kept safe and secure by accredited Digital ID service providers. Find out more at digitalidentity.gov.au.
