This week the Digital ID Bill 2024 and Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2024 successfully passed through the House of Representatives, after passing the Senate early this year in March.
Only Royal Assent remains, which is a formality, after which both Acts are expected to take effect from November.
In a statement, the Australian Government, Department of Finance, says that the Bills will ensure ‘certainty for the expansion of the Australian Government Digital ID System and for providers and services to apply to join the Government’s system. An economy-wide Digital ID System will provide many benefits to Australians by improving privacy and security when interacting online.
It will also strengthen the voluntary Accreditation Scheme for Digital ID service providers that wish to demonstrate compliance with best practice privacy, security, proofing and authentication standards, providing Australians with more choice of secure and trusted providers.’
Accredited private businesses will be able to apply to join the Australian Government Digital ID System within 2 years from the enactment of the Bills.
For individuals, the Government says the Bills will deliver ‘secure, convenient, voluntary and inclusive ways to verify their identity for use in online transactions with government and businesses.’
The ACCC will be the Digital ID Regulator alongside the OAIC who will regulate the privacy aspects of Australia’s Digital ID System.
The move has been heralded as ‘a huge milestone’. A successful program will see Australian’s sharing less of their highly sensitive personal data online, with fewer organisation’s needing to manage large databases with PII (Personally Identifiable Information) on consumers.
Keeping Businesses Safe and Secure
Prevention is always better than a cure, and one of the best defences is to encourage businesses to proactively boost their company’s cyber resilience levels to avoid threats landing in inboxes in the first place. The fact that a staggering 94% of malware attacks are delivered by email, makes email an extremely important vector for businesses to fortify.
No one vendor can stop all email threats, so it’s crucial to remind customers that if they are using Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, they should also have a third-party email security specialist in place to mitigate their risk. For example, using a specialist third-party cloud email solution like MailGuard.
MailGuard provides a range of solutions to keep businesses safe, from email filtering to email continuity and archiving solutions. Speak to your customers today to ensure they’re prepared and get in touch with our team to discuss fortifying your customer’s cyber resilience.
Talk to us
MailGuard's partner blog is a forum to share information; we want it to be a dialogue. Reach out to us and tell us what your customers need so we can serve you better. You can connect with us on social media or call us and speak to one of our consultants.
Australian partners, please call us on 1300 30 65 10
US partners call 1888 848 2822
UK partners call 0 800 404 8993
We’re on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
