I remember my first electric guitar. To a young boy, the red Stratocaster copy and the small practice amp it came with was just the height of style and cool. I named it Phoenix.
Of course, it had come only through a generous loan from my grandmother who had made the point of negotiating terms with me prior. An eager musician, I had voluntarily agreed to her repayment criteria which had involved chores and a regular part of my allowance.
Yet it wasn’t long before the thrill of the new equipment wore off and the long-term gravity of my promises sunk in. As the weeks wore on, I naïvely thought that my grandmother would understand the situation and appreciate that my boredom with our deal was more important than my word I had given her when making it. I was about to learn a lesson very relevant still today.
After accommodating this for a short while, my grandmother eventually brought the issue to a head. I still remember the morning that she calmly approached me, holding Phoenix, and sat me down to talk about the consequences. You see, I was free to default on our deal. There would be no imprisonment, fines, whipping, or even yelling; but there would still be consequences.
Being quite a character, she slung the black guitar strap over her shoulder and attempted her best rock ‘n’ roll pose – woefully failing to look anywhere near as cool as I did. “I could get used to playing this” she said. This was a repossession – Elvis style!
My decision to stop the repayments I had promised her had in fact been voluntary, yet it had cost me my new guitar, and more importantly, her respect. I learned that the single word I had based my behaviour on – “voluntary” – hadn’t meant what I’d thought it did.
What does all of this have to do with Digital Identity and Australia’s myGovID system? Actually, quite a lot. You see, that experience cemented two concepts in my mind:
- The term voluntary is highly subjective.
- A promise is implemented by actions, not words.
Digital ID with Choice? Not on the Menu
For many of us, “voluntary” is a word that perhaps conjures up impressions of consequence free preference—perhaps the kind we’d associate with whether you opt for sprinkles on your ice-cream.
Most would assume that choosing not to have sprinkles would never mean losing your job. In the real world however, it’s just not that simple and mistaking it as such can have deeply dire implications for our lives.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen this hard lesson play out all over again. The ink is hardly dry on Australia’s Digital ID Bill 2024 and we are seeing strong evidence that section 74 of the legislation, the part that states “creating and using a digital ID is voluntary”, does not refer to the “ice-cream sprinkles” type of voluntary we were, as a nation, led to believe it was.
Despite the Minister, Katy Gallagher, who introduced the bill stating it was voluntary and paper alternatives should be made available, companies and state governments can, and are going their own way.
Take the Electrical Safety Office (ESO). In recent communication to those who hold an electrical licence or restricted electrical licence as a condition of their work, the ESO has decided that they are going “online only” and are now requiring a myGovID to facilitate the change. This impacts many professions, including plumbers and sparkies – vocations we’re told are understaffed.
In one instance, I learned of a refrigeration mechanic of over three decades who does not want a digital ID and will hence, on principle, have their career come to an end as a result of this new requirement. This individual’s livelihood is walking out the door just as my red guitar once did. The difference here, of course, is that I had brought the consequence upon myself. I had walked away from a deal I had entered into. This individual, and thousands like them, did not.
Labelling the abolition of paper licencing as an “upgrade”, ESO correspondence states “You can prepare now by creating your myGovID which will be required for you to log in to the new electrical safety licencing system to renew or submit new applications” and “Once you have verified your identity through myGovID, your licence record will be linked to your myGovID.”
I have anecdotally heard that various written objections sent to the ESO on this topic have been met with something perhaps best described as indifference. How are those now forced to choose between adopting the shackles of a federal digital ID, and putting food on their table, to interpret the word “voluntary” in section 74?
Now this dangerous legislation may not be of much concern to those who don’t rely on an electrical licence to pay their mortgage, but it should be. I have also become aware in recent weeks that a myGovID Digital Identity is now also being required for employment in a wide range of fields.
In one instance, an individual who accepted a new management role within a government funded Disability Employment Service was informed that they needed to register a myGovID in order to access information and complete training required for their new role.
Subsection 1 of section 74 states that individuals must not, as a condition of providing a service or access to a service, be required to “create or use a digital ID”. Indeed a large part of the case for passing this legislation was based on the government’s promise that alternative methods must be provided for. Despite that promise, multiple instances of jobs requiring a myGovID Digital Identity are present on the Seek job platform today. Again, promises are implemented through actions, not words.
…and it’s not just employment. Other reports have made their way to me, as someone active in the digital identity space, related to accessing everything from income statements to online reporting portals. These, apparently, are now locked away behind a requirement to obtain a myGovID Digital Identity. A system is not voluntary if it is used to restrict access to resources essential for modern life.
Digital Footprints from Birth
However arguably the most egregious example I have come upon to date – and that’s quite an accomplishment – is the firewalling of birth certificates behind the so-called voluntary government digital ID. In one instance, a married couple seeking to register their newborn’s birth and apply for parental leave were told that new Births, Deaths and Marriages processes now required a myGovID.
Paperwork, the long standing pathway to achieve these simple tasks, is no longer being provided by some hospitals. If we are to believe section 74 of the Digital Identity Bill 2024 in its claim that obtaining a digital ID is voluntary, then we must also conclude that everything now requiring it is also voluntary. In this instance, that would mean everything requiring a birth certificate, including passports and drivers licences.
What makes this instance particularly intolerable is the hoovering up of the recently born into this predatory digital architecture. Children should be free to mature into adulthood without a digital history they did not choose.
Although I was able to remedy my youthful relapse, rise from the ashes as it were, and reclaim use of Phoenix by making good on my promises through restorative action, when it comes to identity management, it certainly looks like the promises that the myGovID system would be voluntary are simply not being kept.
It matters not by whose hands these impositions are being made. The implications for those running afoul of the subjective application of the term voluntary are still very real. The implications of being thrust as a nation into a centrally managed government digital identity scheme are likely to be ill-understood for generations. For many, this is the hill to die (or perhaps we should say to live) on.
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