DTA picks Vault Systems to host Govpass

The Digital Transformation Agency will host its new Govpass digital identity solution in Vault System's ASD-certified cloud computing platform.

The firm is one of three cloud service providers to be certified by the Australian Signals Directorate to host protected-level Australian government data. It received the certification in May this year.

The accreditation was a key factor in the DTA's decision to go with Vault for the hosting of Govpass, the whole-of-government digital identity platform currently being developed by the agency.

“Privacy and protection of personal information is at the heart of the DTA’s work on digital identity. Building trust in how the government stores personal data is not something we compromise on," DTA chief Gavin Slater said in a statement.

“Vault’s open standards cloud has been the perfect solution for Govpass, providing a level of security and sovereignty that is critical to making the process of proving who you are to government simple, safe and secure.”

The agency has been contacted for further detail.

The DTA made the decision earlier this year to build the Govpass identity exchange technology internally after being unable to find a suitable market offering.

The identity exchange component of the Govpass framework is the gateway that connects a government service with the user's identity verifier.

It blinds the government service and identity provider (eg a bank or government agency) from each other so the government service can't see the user's identity documents, and the identity provider can't see what service the user is accessing.

It utilises the OpenID Connect identity layer and SAML data format to exchange the verification data.

The DTA started testing the platform with real users and test data in private beta mode earlier this year.

The ATO has started testing Govpass on its new online tax file number application service, and Australia Post partnered with the DTA in May to tack its Digital ID identification verification service onto the platform.

The platform will operate with a single Commonwealth identity provider - likely to be the ATO or DHS -who will be responsible for handling new digital identities as well as existing ones migrated from other services.

Australia Post has indicated it will seek accreditation to be the first identity provider outside of the Commonwealth.