Qld govt trials eftpos as digital ID broker

The Queensland government is piloting a bare-bones version of eftpos’ new connectID digital identity solution as a way to link up with organisations that need to verify identity credentials.

eftpos digital identity leader Rob Allen told the Technology in Government summit that the “advanced connectID pilot” is one of a handful of public and private sector pilots underway. 

It brings the number of publicly acknowledged trials to two, with Australia Post also trialling the solution following a proof-of-concept with 20 businesses earlier this year.

connectID acts as a broker between identity providers to allow organisations to verify identity in much the same way that the government’s exchange, operated by Services Australia, does.

It is designed to work within the Digital Transformation Agency’s Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF), as well as the banking industry’s TrustID framework.

Allen told the summit on Tuesday that the connectID pilot with the Queensland government is in the “advanced” stage, and that the pair had "worked closely for some time".

He said the government - as an identity service provider (ISP) with “very advanced projects running around the storage of digital identities”- integrated with connectID over a two-week period.

An ISP hosts identity credentials for individuals and responds to queries from other organisations (relying parties) that need to verify an indivduals during a transaction. 

“We were able to integrate their systems and ours in a matter of a couple of weeks, and we’re running multiple identity projects now in parallel on this combined infrastructure,” Allen said.

“The next stage is to add attributes from various departments across government to enrich the identity hosting service by creating an attribute exchange within the government.

“And this is a model which you find under TDIF and is implementable via TrustID as well.”

As connectID answers identity requests from both government and industry, Allen said it was possible for Queensland [ISP] infrastructure to be used by an online retailer, for instance.

“And in future, we’ll move to departments requesting identity verification and citizens sharing data from the Queensland ISP, and then providing attributes to other ISPs,” he added. 

“So this is one example. We’re working with other state government’s on different pilot experiments that will move in a similar direction.”

Allen said eftpos is currently working on its minimum viable product pilot, which he expects will “technically be ready by December”, before a full commercial launch in April 2021.

The launch, which is several months behind the original launch date given in July, will be with “many of the participants that are … piloting in our ecosystem right now”, he added.

Allen also said that connectID could help solve the NSW government’s digital driver’s licence ‘copy solution’ conundrum by allowing businesses to verify, rather than copy, the digital pass.

“connectID allows organisations or businesses to record that successful identity verification has occurred without storing this personal identifiable information at all - this is part of our native design,” he said.

“We’re confident that we’ll be bringing this to market very soon, and this will prevent businesses from having to retain proof of identity on paper copies which is a huge risk for identity theft.”