Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Andy Higgs: Digital Identity NZ Executive Director on potential concerns with the digital drivers licences

Transcript

Andy Higgs: Digital Identity NZ Executive Director on potential concerns with the digital drivers licences · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right, New Zealand is one step closer to a wallet
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: free future. Digital Services Minister Judith Collins says digital driver's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: licenses could be rolling out by the end of the year.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: It means you won't need to carry your wallet to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the bar or when you're driving. The idea is to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: make your life easier, but it also raises safety questions.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Andy Higgs, digital Identity New Zealand executive director, joins me.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Now, good morning Andy, Oh, good morning Francessia.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, so do these changes sound positive to you?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they are that we're wise to be skeptical.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, what shall we be skeptical about?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean if you look at what's happened around
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  Speaker 2: the world with digital identity and places that are not
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  Speaker 2: like us, like Estonia or China or yeah, other countries,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: they you become a number, right. And you know that
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: someone was telling me about that trip to the Middle
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: East the other day and they arrive and they got
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: sick and went to the hospital and the hospital already
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: knew everything about them. So you don't want to go
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  Speaker 2: down that track. And we're not. But I think a
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  Speaker 2: lot of people mistakenly think we are, which is which
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  Speaker 2: is fine. But we've got a big job to do
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: on the education front, so we're doing a bit differently
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  Speaker 2: down here.
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  Speaker 1: So Andy, maybe you could can help us understand how
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: this tech is going to work. Is it like Apple
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: pay or will there be a two factor authentic I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: can never say this word.
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  Speaker 2: Two factor authentication.
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  Speaker 1: Authentication, thank you, authentication? No, I can never say it. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: it's just one of those words.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, So there is security built into the system.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: But really the first thing to understand is it's not
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  Speaker 2: a two sided marketplace. You know, it's not Apple sucking
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: up all our data and controlling our lives. It's actually well,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: there's actually four parts to the to the infrastructure, so
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: it takes a bit of explaining, but I'm good to
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: go if you if you met me. Basically, there's an
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  Speaker 2: issuer of of a credential. We call it a credential,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: which is a global standard and there's the three global
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  Speaker 2: standards that are in popular use, and it allows you
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: to issue the physical identity as what's effectively an encrypted
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  Speaker 2: piece of data or a token digital token. Then you've
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: got the the holder, which is which is us, you know,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the holder of the token, which in the in the
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  Speaker 2: case of the digital identity. It's it's it's held on
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: your device, so your phone. You mentioned the smartphone in
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: in what we what they call a wallet, but it's
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  Speaker 2: not really a wallet. It's more of a kind of
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  Speaker 2: view of the encrypted data. And then you've got the
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: that's the second past part. And then the third part
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  Speaker 2: is the verification, which is the relying party, which which
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: could be the bar, it could be the police officer
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  Speaker 2: that's just pulled you over. Yeah, they're the relying party.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And there's been a whole movement around the world because
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  Speaker 2: it's actually decentralized this method. So there's a whole movement
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: around the world talking about no phoning homes. So what
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  Speaker 2: you don't want is the issuer seeing every time you've
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: used your your credential. So when the relying party checks
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  Speaker 2: your digital credential, that you know the issuer of it
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  Speaker 2: in this case is it TA or the government won't
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  Speaker 2: know that you've presented to the government.
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  Speaker 1: The government can't be looking at what you're doing with
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  Speaker 1: it and storing of data.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: There's no storing of data. And it's basically what's called
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: we've we've we've implemented this new law called its identities
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: versus trust framework. It's a voluntary regime, but that that
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: points to a source of trust, a source of trust
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  Speaker 2: outside that that triangle of our actors. So it could
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: be a government source of trust, or it could be
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  Speaker 2: a non government source of trust. And that's really the
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  Speaker 2: big opportunity for New Zealand to preserve greater privacy and
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: control for every day in New Zealanders.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, it sounds like they've thought about this. Thank you
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: for talking us through that, Andy, appreciate that.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: For more from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 4:35
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• 4:39
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