Australia
The New South Wales (NSW) government is to set up a new ministerial advisory council to inform digital identity policy. It says this is to drive greater consistency across the state’s identity products and services.
Digital and customer service minister Victor Dominello revealed the digital identity ministerial advisory council (DIMAC) following the release of the government’s first identity strategy last month.
The strategy aims to ensure departments and agencies take a “holistic” approach to privacy, security and customer service when implementing “new identity products, processes and technology”.
The 10-member advisory council will provide advice on “strategic and tactical approaches” to digital identity and relevant issues to Dominello in a similar fashion to the AI advisory committee.
It is ultimately expected to “support improves digital identity-based services and outcomes in accelerated times” by facilitating collaboration between government, industry and academia.
The government is currently calling for digital identity thought leaders, both in an individual and industry capacity, to join the council, with membership to be reviewed and rotated on an annual basis.
However elsewhere, the budget and staff of Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), which runs the country’s digital ID efforts, will be reduced, despite an emphasis on digital transformation in the budget with an overall AU$1.2 billion (approximately US$941 million) price tag, InnovationAus reports.
Dubai
The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts has acquired the qualified electronic seal solution Ethaq, a paperless initiative that enables digital authenticity of documents with the support of UAE PASS, the secure national digital identity platform for the UAE.
Ethaq is powered by Dubai Electronic Security Centre (DESC) and its Root Certificate Authority. It recognises the DIFC Courts as the first Dubai entity to acquire the entirely paperless certificate that enables court documents to be electronically signed, issued, and authenticated. Ethaq also integrates UAE PASS, the secure national digital identity platform of the UAE, in collaboration with Smart Dubai, to provide an end-to-end signing solution that combines both an electronic seal and an electronic signature solution based on digitally verifiable identities.
The electronic seal Ethaq will also reinforce the security and integrity of the documentation and eradicates tampering of official documents, enabling users to digitally verify the authenticity of any legal documents through the DIFC Courts website.
Philippines
The National Economic Development Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua has praised the new Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) for its potential in three digital identity-related areas of development, the Philippine News Agency reports.
Speaking during the recent Human Capital Ministerial Conclave organised by the World Bank, Chua specifically mentioned subsidy distribution, financial inclusion, and efficient vaccine distribution as benefits of the biometrics-backed national digital identity system.
The NEDA Secretary also defined the new system as a means to turn the crisis sparked by pandemic into a chance to embark on certain ‘long-standing reforms’.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed several institutional weaknesses, including the difficulty in identifying beneficiaries for social programs and the lack of bank accounts for the efficient distribution of subsidies,” he said. “Given this, the President gave the directive to accelerate the implementation of the PhilSys. We aim to register 50 to 70 million individuals by the end of the year.”
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) opened the second, biometrics-focused part of the registration process for PhilSys in January, followed by an online digital ID registration process last month.
Nigeria
President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has urged citizens to continue registering for the biometric national identification number (NIN) saying it will help the country better handle national security threats and enhance strategic national planning.
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Buhari was speaking recently in the capital Abuja during a ceremony to launch the National Policy for the Promotion of Indigenous Content and the Revised National Identity Policy for SIM card registration which was recently validated by stakeholders, The Guardian reports.
A project to enroll Nigerians for a biometric digital ID has been ongoing for years now and it seeks to touch at least 150 million citizens by 2022. In December last year, the federal government made it mandatory for phone users to link their digital ID numbers to their SIM cards.
Already, about 54 million Nigerians are said to have already obtained the NIN, according to government statistics. There is currently a June 30 deadline for the SIM registration exercise, as per Biometric Update.
US/UK
Regulators have blocked the acquisition of UK based digital identity firm Isosec by Imprivata.
Isosec, headquartered in Manchester, develops cloud-based virtual smartcards which allow staff secure access to healthcare systems and applications.
NHS Digital funded the use of the solution for NHS organisations which needed them as part of their COVID-19 response. The company has more than 120 NHS customers, with particular focus in the Acute, Primary Care and CCG sectors.
In late December it was announced that Imprivata, based in Boston in the US and which delivers end-to-end authentication and access management solutions for healthcare organisations, was to acquire Isosec.
The firms said the combined technology would provide customers with more ways to securely access clinical workstations and applications and further streamline secure remote working.
However, the deal has been abandoned after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found competition concerns.
The CMA said it “found evidence indicating that Imprivata and Isosec are important rivals in this area and that part of the motivation for the takeover was the removal of a competitive threat from the market. Competition between these companies was also expected to grow in the future with the introduction of new products.
“The CMA was concerned that, if the merger went ahead as planned, it would have an impact on NHS and other healthcare providers across England and could potentially lead to taxpayers receiving poorer value for money in relation to these services. In addition, the companies’ customers, including the NHS, would have limited other options in terms of suppliers.”
UK
The Home Office has called an 11th-hour delay to reimposing in-person ‘Right to Work’ identity checks, with the date moved from 17 May to 21 June, reports Recruiter.
While welcoming the delay, those in the recruitment are calling for the cancellation of a return to in-person checks, saying that the digital check system imposed at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic has greatly streamlined their operations.
Recruiters making the case to government for continued digital checks had also argued that the original 17 May date to return to physical checks conflicted with continuing guidance on social distancing and working from home.
Reverting to the physical checks will also “disproportionately disadvantage UK workers”, one critic said.
“This is a big win for recruiters,” said Shazia Ejaz, campaigns director for the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). “It allows them to continue with digital checks while social distancing is still in place.”
Ejaz added that the REC would “continue to push” for digital checks to remain in place “for the long haul. REC members have proven that these checks work and increase efficiency for all concerned”.
