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This year’s federal budget will include over $288 million in funding to bolster the adoption of its new Digital ID framework.
The Digital ID, which is set to be bolstered after a recent Digital ID Bill passed the Senate in March, intends to boost privacy and protect consumers with stronger mitigations for fraud and identity theft.
Accompanying the bill, Minister for Finance and the Public Service Katy Gallagher has shared that the government-issued digital ID framework will receive $288.1 million in additional funding over a four-year period, over 11 times last year’s $24.7 million.
Majority of the funding will be allocated to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), with $155.6 million being allocated over two years to strengthen and fuel the myGovID and the Relationship Authorisation Manager used by businesses. The former of the two is used by over 12 million Australians.
To allow Services Australia to continue operating and bolster the Digital ID’s identity exchange that allows for cross-system transactions and maintain the system administrators’ functions, the federal budget will allocate it $46 million to be rolled out over two years.
$35.2 million will go to finance “to continue policy leadership and governance of the Digital ID program”, while the Attorney-General’s Department will receive $11 million to fund upgrades to the credential protection register.
$7.8 million will go towards the Treasury, while the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) will receive $5.6 million to oversee the privacy standards of the Digital ID legislation that will result from the recently passed bill.
According to Gallagher, the massive increase in funding comes as major data breaches continue to plague the country, most recently the ClubsNSW attack that led to the exposure of the ID and login details of over ClubsNSW members.
“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 in a statement seen by media.
“Accessing services online with a secure digital ID restricts the oversharing of personal information and means there are less copies of your ID data and documents out in the world.”
At this stage, the Digital ID system will be completely voluntary, as requested by the Greens and the Liberal Party. However, there are hopes to expand it beyond this to increase security in the future and minimise how much personal data is stored by third-party organisations.
“Our investment in improving and expanding a national Digital ID system shows we are committed to making it simpler, safer and more secure for Australians to access services online,” Gallagher said.
Businesses will soon be invited to trial the Digital ID system, with the recently passed bill including a two-year phase-in period for businesses.
To date, almost $750 million has been spent on the Digital ID system.
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