ConnectID, the Australian Payments Plus (AP+) developed digital identity solution, has made its long-awaited public debut, with the service now available to Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and NAB customers in a number of use cases.
ConnectID, which was developed in partnership with the big four banks and makes use of secure ‘financial-grade’ APIs, enables third-party businesses to leverage banks’ and other trusted service providers’ existing verification systems to confirm the identity of customers.
Rather than providing proof of identity documents, consumers can simply request a participating third-party business to digitally verify their information, in real-time, using these highly trusted organisations.
A key benefit of the service for customers, according to AP+, is that they can verify their identity without having to share personally identifiable (PII) data with a service or product provider.
“We deliberately designed ConnectID so it doesn’t see or store or even glance any PII [personally identifiable information],” said AP+ managing director Andrew Black.
“We create a trusted set of endpoints to connect [businesses in] a peer-to-peer exchange. It then allows the individual to choose where they’d like it to come from – so, for instance, the Commonwealth Bank or NAB.”
This verification status is then “only shared between those two organisations”, Black said.
With a surge in data breach events, Black welcomed the introduction of a new verification system that obviates the need for businesses to store and store personal information.
“With the cascading world of frauds and scams on the rise and data breaches at the forefront of Aussie consciousness, it’s never been a more pertinent time [to launch],” Black said.
ConnectID effectively functions “as a bridge between an organisation that wants to verify someone’s identity and the organisation providing that verification”, AP+ said in a statement, and can only happen “when the customer authorises it”.
According to Black, connections between merchants and trusted ID verifiers (such as the big four banks) are established via secure APIs, all of which are based on global and interoperable standards.
“We try not to build anything bespoke. We want to make things open and interoperable, and easy for aligned businesses to consume and connect into.”
These ‘financial-grade APIs’ come with bank-grade trust, encryption and security protocols, Black said, making them “easy to use but also tightly locked up”.
Though not stating a specific launch date, Black said that the two other big four banks and key strategic development partners Westpac and ANZ will soon offer ConnectID to their customers.
The service, he said, is also expected to be expanded to “other major providers of trust”, including federal and state governments.
“We’re really hopeful and [will] work very closely with the government to ensure this will be an interoperable system – we don’t want this to be a private sector-only ecosystem in the future.
“Having the ability for the individual to select CBA or MyGovID in the future is a core aspiration,” Black said.
“I’d love to see that interoperability between private and public sectors and hopefully that passing of federal legislation next year will allow for that”.
CBA general manager of Open Data Katherine Sleeth welcomed the introduction of ConnectID which she said would “keep consumers’ data safer online, with strong security and privacy controls”.
Brad Carr, NAB’s executive of digital governance said: “We’re proud to support the launch of ConnectID today, which will make life so much easier for Australians when they are going through a process of validating their identity online, and doing so in a safe way that protects their data and privacy.”
Carr added: “This represents a significant and exciting milestone in the journey towards enabling both NAB customers and the wider community to go about their digital lives more securely, whilst supporting growth and confidence in the Australian digital economy.”
Among the current businesses making use of verification services include Referoo, Credenxia, ServiceSeeking, OnePassport, RentBetter, Shaype and more.
Black said AP+ was also receiving interest and reaching out to rental and employee onboarding services, e-commerce businesses, and gig economy and digital marketplace platforms to embed the verification service.
ConnectID received Australian Government Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF) accreditation in September 2021, becoming the first non-government operator of a digital identity exchange to be accredited by the rules and standards setter.
