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Digital ID gives government agencies higher confidence in ID verification of their customers, staff or stakeholders to access to online services and systems more easily.

It delivers better productivity by completing ID verification without needing to collect, store or archive copies of ID documents. Once a person sets up a Digital ID, they can verify their ID to access an online service or system without needing to submit copies of their ID documents each time. This comes with the added benefit of reducing the oversharing of data to better protect the community.

There are already millions of Australians with active myID accounts and over a hundred services integrated into the Australian Government Digital ID System.

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For your agency

The benefits of a government agency using Digital ID include:  

  1. enhanced privacy, security and confidence for individuals sharing personal information with your agency
  2. significant reduction in the storage of sensitive personal data helping to meet regulatory compliance without storing customer ID documents
  3. improved fraud resilience at every interaction with certainty that the user logging into your system or service is the correct authorised person
  4. long term savings for your agency and its users through efficient ID verification processes and streamlined transactions, as less time spent verifying who people are means faster onboarding to services, reduced duplication and administration
  5. greater inclusion and participation from people being able to access digital services and reducing demand on call centres and service centres
  6. enables your employees to securely represent your organisation through the Relationship Authorisation Manager (RAM).  

Reduced administrative burden

Digital ID adoption can lead to a reduction in manual ID verification that needs to be completed. The process is completed digitally, which reduces repetitive handling of sensitive personal data and the risk of human error. This provides your agency with:

  • more efficient government service delivery (e.g. faster employee or contractor onboarding or shortening the time to provide individuals access to your services)
  • a better way for users that have lost access to their ID documents to continue to access your services, whether due to misplacing them, damage, scams, natural disasters or family/domestic violence.

Meeting the Government’s Digital Experience Policy

Adoption and use of Digital ID within your agency helps to meet the mandated standards that make up the Digital Experience Policy.  Some examples of how Digital ID meets these standards are:

  • aligns the user experience with other government platforms  
  • improves data security, transparency and handling processes
  • provides an inclusive and accessible alternative for ID verification
  • the Digital Experience Toolkit provides checklists for new and existing services.

For your users

The benefits for your users include:

  • time and cost savings because physical ID documents do not need to be certified at in-person ID verification appointments (e.g. post office or your service centre)
  • minimising the amount of personal data collected and stored by your agency, which in turn decreases the risk of data breaches.
  • better protection against identity theft, as less of their sensitive information is exposed during verification processes
  • more consistent experiences across services and different agencies when using Digital ID, which reduces the cognitive burden on users by minimising the need to understand different ID verification requirements for each service.

How you can use Digital ID

Here are some of the ongoing functions within your agency that can benefit from the use of Digital ID.

Internal  

  • employees booking flights, corporate credit cards or work phones
  • delegate approvals, where staff need to act on behalf of a role or position
  • onboarding new staff, contractors and consultancies
  • access to your agencies systems and services
  • management of machine credentials through authorised administrators, where business software access is required.

External

  • secure verification of new users for the purposes of accessing payments and services
  • users logging into government portals, sites or systems
  • users verifying who they are after ID documents have been lost or are inaccessible
  • exploring opportunities within your agency.

The Department of Finance acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, water and community.