Andy Higgs: Digital Identity NZ Executive Director on potential concerns with the digital drivers licences

A tech expert says there's good reason to be sceptical about digital identifications.  

Digital Services Minister Judith Collins says driver licences could soon be available on our phones before the end of the year.  

New South Wales has already rolled out a similar service. 

Digital Identity New Zealand Executive Director Andy Higgs told Francesca Rudkin it has to be done in good faith.  

He says in some countries people are treated as a number, with much of their personal information stored with the licence. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right, New Zealand is one step closer to a wallet
free future. Digital Services Minister Judith Collins says digital driver's
licenses could be rolling out by the end of the year.
It means you won't need to carry your wallet to
the bar or when you're driving. The idea is to
make your life easier, but it also raises safety questions.
Andy Higgs, digital Identity New Zealand executive director, joins me.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Now, good morning Andy, Oh, good morning Francessia.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Okay, so do these changes sound positive to you?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, they are that we're wise to be skeptical.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Okay, what shall we be skeptical about?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, I mean if you look at what's happened around
the world with digital identity and places that are not
like us, like Estonia or China or yeah, other countries,
they you become a number, right. And you know that
someone was telling me about that trip to the Middle

(01:00):
East the other day and they arrive and they got
sick and went to the hospital and the hospital already
knew everything about them. So you don't want to go
down that track. And we're not. But I think a
lot of people mistakenly think we are, which is which
is fine. But we've got a big job to do
on the education front, so we're doing a bit differently

(01:23):
down here.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
So Andy, maybe you could can help us understand how
this tech is going to work. Is it like Apple
pay or will there be a two factor authentic I
can never say this word.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Two factor authentication.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Authentication, thank you, authentication? No, I can never say it. Actually,
it's just one of those words.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah. No, So there is security built into the system.
But really the first thing to understand is it's not
a two sided marketplace. You know, it's not Apple sucking
up all our data and controlling our lives. It's actually well,

(02:06):
there's actually four parts to the to the infrastructure, so
it takes a bit of explaining, but I'm good to
go if you if you met me. Basically, there's an
issuer of of a credential. We call it a credential,
which is a global standard and there's the three global
standards that are in popular use, and it allows you

(02:27):
to issue the physical identity as what's effectively an encrypted
piece of data or a token digital token. Then you've
got the the holder, which is which is us, you know,
the holder of the token, which in the in the
case of the digital identity. It's it's it's held on

(02:49):
your device, so your phone. You mentioned the smartphone in
in what we what they call a wallet, but it's
not really a wallet. It's more of a kind of
view of the encrypted data. And then you've got the
that's the second past part. And then the third part
is the verification, which is the relying party, which which

(03:11):
could be the bar, it could be the police officer
that's just pulled you over. Yeah, they're the relying party.
And there's been a whole movement around the world because
it's actually decentralized this method. So there's a whole movement
around the world talking about no phoning homes. So what
you don't want is the issuer seeing every time you've

(03:32):
used your your credential. So when the relying party checks
your digital credential, that you know the issuer of it
in this case is it TA or the government won't
know that you've presented to the government.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
The government can't be looking at what you're doing with
it and storing of data.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
There's no storing of data. And it's basically what's called
we've we've we've implemented this new law called its identities
versus trust framework. It's a voluntary regime, but that that
points to a source of trust, a source of trust
outside that that triangle of our actors. So it could
be a government source of trust, or it could be

(04:17):
a non government source of trust. And that's really the
big opportunity for New Zealand to preserve greater privacy and
control for every day in New Zealanders.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Okay, it sounds like they've thought about this. Thank you
for talking us through that, Andy, appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
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