Australia’s Eftpos national debit card system has launched a digital identity exchange solution that enables consumers to share personal information held by trusted digital ID providers in a wide range of use cases, from opening an online account and making online payments to accessing government services or providing proof of age.

Eftpos ConnectID allows users to authenticate their identity with merchants, hotels, hospitals, insurers, government departments and other organisations by linking to a verified digital ID such as one registered with their bank or on Australia Post’s Digital iD platform.

“ConnectID is a ‘broker’ between identity providers, organisations that securely hold identity data on behalf of their customers, and merchants or government departments that need to verify who they are dealing with or receive identity information that they can trust,” Eftpos says.

“While ConnectID securely facilitates the identity verification or data exchange, it does not store the identity data. Identity service providers store consumer identities and take responsibility for providing this secure information only under the consent of the identity owner.

“ConnectID has applied to become the first non-government accredited operator of a digital identity exchange in Australia.

“As interoperability is key to the ConnectID solution, it is designed to work within the federal government’s Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF) and the financial industry’s TrustID framework, as well as emerging international standards in distributed digital identity credentials.”

A short video explains how the solution works:

Eftpos started developing ConnectID last year and says it is now working with governments, businesses, online merchants, banks and other identity providers “with a view to building identity into our national payments infrastructure as well as other commercial applications for all Australians and Australian businesses”.

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