Australia
The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) has been carrying out digital identity age verification trials for online alcohol purchases with selected providers in Australia since September, according to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
FOI documents released by the Office of eSafety Commissioner indicated there were also plans to carry out similar trials for online gambling, with each private beta testing scheduled to operate for a three to six-month period.
Scope to expand the trial in 2022 has also been proposed to include additional users, other Australian-based online alcohol, online gambling service providers, and R18+ online video games with ‘loot boxes’, and myGovID as an identity provider.
Philippines
The government of the Philippines recently secured a World Bank loan of $600 million to help push the country’s economic recovery and resilience efforts.
Some of the money will be channelled to the development of digital identification infrastructure in the country which is said to be among those lagging behind in the East Asia and the Pacific Region in terms of inflows of direct foreign investment.
According to a World Bank press release, the loan under the development policy loan (DPL) scheme, dubbed the ‘Philippines Promoting Competitiveness and Enhancing Resilience to Natural Disasters Sub-Program 3 Development Policy Loan,’ is meant to support ongoing government reforms, among them the amendments to Retail Liberalization Act to promote private investment, reduction in the cost of doing business, and expansion of broadband services to promote investments in information and communications technology.
United States / India / Southeast Asia
Digital identity verification and fraud protection platform Bureau has raised $12 million in series-A funding round led by Quona Capital with participation from Commerce Ventures and Okta Identity.
This funding round also had participation from as strategic angels like Mark Britto of Paypal, and Bobby Mehta of ex-Transunion fame, the startup said.
Bureau had raised a seed round of $4.2 million in August 2020 from XYZ Ventures, Blume Ventures, Village Global, EMVC and Sweat Equity Ventures, who have invested in the series-A round as well, it added.
The funds will be used to enhance products and establish a wider footprint in India, and Southeast Asia, it said, adding a portion of the money will also go into doubling up on its current capabilities for customer on-boarding and launch solutions including account takeover prevention, transaction monitoring, and solving return-to-origin and chargebacks use cases.
Global
ID.me has announced Stephen Benedict has joined ID.me as chief product officer.
Benedict brings more than 20 years’ leadership experience with major technology companies. In his most recent role leading product management for personalization at Amazon, he used artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to create, launch, and scale new e-commerce experiences.
Australia
The federal government will spend another $161 million on its federated digital identity system over the next two years, bringing total investment since 2015 to more than $600 million.
The new funding, revealed in the 2020-21 mid-year economic and fiscal outlook (MYEFO will allow the government to continue the program, known as GovPass, until at least 2024-25.
The investment forms part of a $252.5 million digital economy package, which builds on the $1.2 billion over six years the government put towards the digital economy strategy in the May federal budget.
The new funding for the federated digital identity system will be provided between the 2022-23 and 2024-25 financial years to “improve online access to government services and payments”.
It follows the government’s $256.6 million investment in the digital identity system in the 2020 budget and $67.1 million investment in the 2019 budget, and comes at a time when it is planning on having all online services available online by 2025.
