Bill To Block Face Recognition Introduced To Australia’s Parliament.
Bill To Block Face Recognition – The Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 and accompanying amendments just introduced in Australia’s parliament will block most of the planned government uses of one-to-many facial recognition if passed, according to a memo.
As well as new face recognition applications, the bills will impact the use of current identity services including the document verification services, the biometric Facial Verification Service (FVS) as well as the National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution (NDLFRS).
More seriously for security and law enforcement, the bills would scale back the use of Home Affairs’ Face Identification Service, which currently allows law enforcement to create a gallery of up to 20 of the highest matching images when investigating serious crimes.
The bills would only authorize the one-to-many matching service “for the purpose of protecting the identity of persons with a legally assumed identity, such as undercover officers and protected witnesses,” and would prohibit all other uses.
The legislation has been tabled with enhanced privacy protections. When a private organization makes a request of the FVS, the new response will be either a “match” or “no match”.
Bill To Block Face Recognition Introduced To Australia
States and territories that provide driver’s license data to the federal government must also meet new privacy rules which is likely to push greater use of the myGovID verification.
“Without the NDLFRS, only persons with an Australian passport…would be able to create a ‘strong’ MyGovID and access critical services,” according to the memo.
“Roughly 80 per cent of Australians have a driver’s license, while only 50 percent have an Australian passport. The MyGovID is required to access government services like Centrelink and the Australian Tax Office.”
The bills require that data is encrypted at rest and outlines rules surrounding how data breaches must be reported.
“Australians rightly expect greater protections, transparency and control over their personal information when they provide it to trusted organisations,” said Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in a joint statement.
“The measures in these bills strike the right balance between achieving fast and convenient identity verification and maintaining strong standards of privacy and security.”
Should the bills pass, there’s little doubt they would have a trickle-down impact on the use of face recognition across a range of applications within government departments. There’s more information on the legislation here or you can read more SEN news here.
“Bill To Block Face Recognition Introduced To Australia’s Parliament.”
