Budget 2024: Labor to Invest $288 Million into Rolling out the National Digital ID

An Australian government digital ID sign up site is seen on a laptop on April 25, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times

The centre-left Albanese government will allocate $288.1 million in the upcoming federal budget for the roll-out of the national digital ID.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher argued that the expansion of digital ID was aimed at cracking down on identity theft by cutting down the amount of personal data being stored by third parties.

“The recent data breach across NSW and the ACT involving customer information from licensed clubs show how important it is to help Australians reduce the risk of identity theft,” she said on May 13, obtained by AAP.

“Accessing services online with a secure digital ID restricts the oversharing of personal information and means there are less copies of your ID data and documents out in the world.”

The Albanese government has continued the rollout of the digital ID bill since 2023, following multiple data breaches of Australian companies, including telco giant Optus and Medicare.

In a recent breach, details of more than one million customers who visited a dozen licensed venues in New South Wales were published online.

Ms. Gallagher said that by expanding the scheme, the government committed to making the digital ID system “simpler, safer, and more secure.”

The latest funding round, which will be announced in the federal budget on May 14, will include $155.6 million over two years for the tax office to start implementing the system.

The funding will also finance pilot programs to identify different ways for the digital ID to be used.

For example, private sector businesses will be able to verify the qualifications of job applicants. The system can also be used for age verification when entering venues.

Critics have argued that the system would not remain voluntary, despite government assertions to the contrary.

“If the government is serious about claiming that its digital ID scheme is ‘voluntary,’ it is not clear why it cannot limit exceptions to its voluntary standard to a narrow, prescribed list of circumstances,” National Senator Matt Canavan and Liberal Senator Gerard Rennick argued in a report published in February.

“Even for those businesses that do not receive an exemption, the bill provides no requirement for an organisation to provide non-digital ID services on a similar basis.”

They outlined a scenario where a bank could make it difficult for a customer seeking to use traditional identification documents to open an account by, for example, making them wait weeks for an appointment.

The legislation has also met with grassroots criticism, with thousands of Australians attending rallies in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane on May 5 to protest against the bill.

A petition by the One Nation party that calls for the bill to be repealed has gathered over 60,000 signatures in March.

“The provision for a government agency to mandate digital ID for accessing certain services, under vaguely defined conditions, opens avenues for misuse, and infringes on personal freedoms and privacy,” the petition said.

Monica O'Shea and AAP contributed to this report.