Paul Spain: tech commentator on the Government's plan to roll out digital drivers’ licences

There'll be no need to carry a physical drivers' licence with the Government's plan for digital alternatives.

Digital Services Minister Judith Collins wants to introduce an app that could store the data, and New South Wales has already rolled out a similar service.

Tech commentator Paul Spain says the system will need to be robust to protect data.

"What we've seen from Governments all around the world is the more data they collect, the more data that they end up losing and leaking."

The digital licences could be introduced before the end of the year.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nine the numbers Text would love your feedback this afternoon,
just gone nine after four. If all goes to plan,
you could be using a digital driver's license by the
end of the year, no more physical license and this
would be stored on a government app. Digital Services Minister
Judicon says quote, the main thing is to not stuff
it all up. Paul Spain's the CEO Gorilla Check with

(00:20):
me this afternoon. Paul good, are you Ryan? Good to
have you on the show. How hard is this? What
is there to stuff up?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, there's losing losing our valuable data. I think you know,
most people would like their information kept private and not
not leaked all over the web. You know. I think
we want something that is as well well built and
as robust when when it launches. That's that's really important.

(00:52):
And it seems like they're trying to speed this along
and you know that that could mean we end up
with issues. And yeah, as we know, governments and businesses
are not always very good at protecting our confidential data.
So these things need to be done in a really,
really well structured manner.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
They've done this in New South Wales apparently very successfully,
and not just for the licenses but other products government
products as well. Is there are there places where they've
done this in an app and it's not been secure.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I think what we've seen from governments all around
the world is the more data they collect, the more
data that they end up losing and leaking. So in
the US, for instance, they set up a database. I
think this was at the border for people sort of
you know, crossing between the US and Mexico with license

(01:47):
plate information and you know whose license plates related to
who and so on. That was done maybe at pace
as well. They used an external firm outside of government
to do it, and then it came out that all
of this data that was in there ended up being
able to be accessed by parties who shouldn't have had

(02:08):
access to the data. And we've seen that all around
the world, you know, including New Zealand, where government doesn't
always do a great job of keeping data that should
be private private.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Paul, on that basis, will you keep your physical license
if you get the option.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Look, I'm always a big proponent for leveraging technology where
we can, so I'll be having a look at it,
probably pretty pretty carefully. Get my head around it. Reality
is probably all of our driver's license data is already
you know, well, it is already in a database that
the government holds. It's going to be. How different is

(02:49):
this approach and trying to weigh up the risks. I
think there'll be a lot of convenience factors of being
able to have our driver's license on our phone, So
you know, I would say a lot of us will
probably move move along in that direction.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
You pretty swiftly, Paul, Appreciate your time. Paul Spine's CEO
at Guerrilla Tech. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio