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Turnbull's transformers plan business access to YOUR GOV ID DATA

Digital Transformation Office moots federated digital identity model in alpha services guide

Australia's new Digital Transformation Office (DTO), the digital disruption brainchild of communications minister Malcolm Turnbull, has outlined plans for an ambitious new government-led digital identification plan that will meld government and business data on individuals to create a single digital ID.

The plan's emerged in the newly-released alpha Digital Service Design Guides, documents that outline how the DTO imagines Australian government agencies will deliver services online. One of those guides, for Identity Assurance, expands on a recent DTO thought bubble about a planned “Trusted Digital Identity Framework” designed to “... deliver a way for citizens and businesses to transact with public services simply and securely.”

The Identity Assurance Guide puts flesh on those bones with the following explanation of just what the DTO hopes to achieve:

A nationally recognised Trusted Digital Identity Framework (Framework) will establish a set of principles, technical architecture and interoperable standards for digital identities in Australia. Under this trust framework, users of digital government services will be able to assert their identities securely and safely, and relying parties can be confident that users are who they say they are.

The Framework will be developed in collaboration with the private sector. The objective is to give individuals and business users the choice of using accredited government and third-party identity provider information to access government services as part of a federated model. This will, in turn, generate trust in digital identities more broadly across the economy. It will also lead to improved access to services, new products and markets for consumers and industry, and more productive ways of doing business.

Involving third parties, and seemingly commercial entities, in a government-led digital identity scheme raises obvious privacy concerns.

The Guide is an alpha so has been published to solicit feedback. Consultation is already under way on the DTO'S digital ID plans: the agency has committed to “a roundtable – featuring leaders from the consumer, IT, identity policy, security, government, and business sectors” and promised an “‘identity policy workshop’ to start forging the Framework.”

The Register will track those consultations. If you're participating in them, feel free to get in touch. ®

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