Privacy group wants Australia to appoint a biometrics commissioner

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• Release on :2017-04-25

The Australian Attorney General’s Department is planning to add up to 12 million passport photographs to its Face Verification Service this year, which has prompted recommendations from a privacy rights organization to appoint a biometric commissioner to protect the privacy of Australians, according to a report by Innovation Aus.
Unveiled last November, the Face Verification Service (FVS) initially held only the citizenship images of those individuals born overseas who are applying for Australian citizenship. The image is provided as part of the application process, and is managed by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
Now, an estimated 12 million images from Australians’ biometric passports are set to be made available to the FVS, a system that is designed to help combat identity theft by matching a photograph against a verified facial biometric.
The system is expected to play an integral role in the Digital Transformation Agency’s Govpass digital identity framework which is currently under development.