The Australian government is considering centralising digital ID verification on myGov in wake of the Optus breach. Meanwhile, experts believe using any single system has its own cybersecurity weaknesses. It could leave the data vulnerable to misuse.
In the Optus breach, millions of passports, driver’s licences and Medicare numbers of 10 million customers were under cyber attack. This breach raised questions regarding companies’ collection and storage of customers’ personal information.
Single digital identification service
David Thodey, former Telstra chief executive was recruited to audit myGov. His review would examine whether myGov could prevent people from needing to present ID documents more than once. Bill Shorten, spokesperson for the government service minister said, “Within the audit’s remit is to consider how myGov can deliver seamless services that will frequently involve private enterprise service providers. This would prevent the need for citizens to provide sensitive data multiple times to multiple entities.”
Also, the government is looking forward to one single digital identification service that businesses can use. As there are more than 25m active myGov accounts and it would be ‘’ the natural home for expended citizen service’’, Spokesperson said.
Documents would still be at risk of Exposure
Prof Vanessa Teague, a Cyber security researcher believes that the development of the single system also raises questions. Storing ID document numbers digitally would mean that documents would be still at risk of exposure. Such as cyber-attach or data breaches. She said that the system used an identity exchange that mediates all logins meaning a single point of failure. Where one server could track every time a person logged in and every service they logged in to. She added, “There’s no reason that the authority that issued your digital ID should get a constant update every time you log in,”
Stephen Wilson, a digital identity and privacy consultant, said the digital ID system was meant to be a single login for government services. It is not a replacement for verifying someone’s identity.“They aimed to give citizens a single key to access all federal government accounts, starting with tax, Medicare and Centrelink. The key proves you’re a citizen to the ATO,” he said.
