Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a pleasure to be speaking at 9 o'clock in the morning on the financial sector digital—I've got the wrong notes in front of me. That's not a help. Mind you I think I could still do a good job on that one as well. It is quite interesting that we are talking about digital identity and it's great; it's very timely I think. Certainly on the Finance and Expenditure Committee we are doing an inquiry into cryptocurrency so it actually fits very well with this. However I do have one little issue and it's great to talk about this—and Mr Speaker you may have seen one of these. This Government's talking about digital identity and when you get a vaccination you get this little bit of card that a 10-year-old could design on their home computer and print off. We really need to get our priorities right. This should have been dealt with months ago right at the beginning actually with some sort of digital solution but we didn't have one. Instead we get a bit of card quite a flimsy bit of card. We're going to talk about a passport at some point—well we've got to get these things right and get our priorities right. We should have been doing that right at the beginning.But this bill the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill will actually make some significant difference for us. We absolutely have to take care of our digital identities. I was just having a chat before with the Hon Todd McClay and he said that actually the biggest risk that a lot of people face is all the information they put up quite willingly on social media platforms and that comes back often to bite people later on in life. However this bill won't deal with that in particular. We need to have a good awareness of what it is that's important in the digital space. If we'd like to use a motoring analogy when cars first came out they didn't have seat belts and they didn't have airbags and all those sorts of things. Those things developed over time at a much slower pace. In the digital world these things are happening at a much higher pace and we simply are playing catch-up and I think that's always going to be the case. We're playing catch-up to put good regulatory controls around the things that really matter and this really matters—getting this right.I was speaking yesterday to a constituent who is doing quite a bit of work in the blockchain space in terms of the authentication of digital material and I think that's also going to be a key part of all of this. But it was back in 2013 I believe when RealMe came into existence—and I'm trying to think of the name of the bill that it came out under. That was a fantastic step forward but that's now completely out of date and I don't think many of us actually use RealMe that much. I remember using it on two occasions and I think it was quite an effort to use it at the time. It was quite clunky. So we do need to have those sorts of things. We all have our digital signature that our staff will use on the bottom of a newsletter or a letter that we write and I'm sure the Minister doesn't sign personally all of the letters that come out of his office and nor should he. But that is not exactly what we're talking about here. What we're talking about are transactions in the digital space and how we get security in that area.I think the banking sector is going through that very issue at the moment and they've got quite good processes in place. But there's a heck of a lot that we can learn from cryptocurrency actually. The individual market is ahead of central banks in this space by a long way and I think that central banks are playing catch-up trying to bring in their own digital currencies. But all the processes around that are being innovative and that innovation has come from a market. And we have to be sure with all these legislative changes that we make that we allow for that innovation which will come from competition. It certainly won't come from a central bank. They are conservative by nature. They don't take risks and that's good for us. We don't want them to be out there taking risks that are significant.It is quite a thing for us to spend all this time on these important areas and the Minister talked quite a bit about it last night. I think it was actually a full 10 minutes that you took last night Minister. I was quite looking forward to giving my speech before 10 o'clock last night but he stole my thunder. I couldn't get anywhere near it but he was enjoying himself and quite clearly it's something that interests the Minister and I think that's a very positive sign for us all because this can make a lot of people's eyes glaze over. But it's very important that we have somebody who knows the subject and who is going to drive it from behind. I know you're going to do a lot of work in this space Minister and you'll no doubt stay in close touch with the select committee as it works through the process because I think a lot of good evidence will come in from industry and interested parties that will help inform the forming of this bill. There is no doubt that with all the best intentions in the world there'll be something missing in the bill that can be improved by industry experience and that's what the whole select committee process is all about.I guess you've got to really as I said get the balance right about innovation and the Government as a steward of this process. You did speak a little bit about that last night Minister and I'm sure you'll have done quite a bit of work on it but I think that's something where we should have the main focus in our select committee roles to see that we get that balance where it needs to be.The leaking of personal information is I think where this issue comes to public attention the most. I think the Waikato DHB losing all of its digital records and being held to ransom is what the public hear about most often and I think that's where they see the most fear other than losing their bank accounts. But those sorts of things have to be worked through as well as much as possible. I'm sure there'll be strong buy-in from the sector and those companies. I am certain that the ministry will have spent some engaging with the sector in the drafting of this bill. I guess the basic principles of privacy and data protection are what are underpinning this but whenever you have protections of course that also limits freedoms and that's something that I would like to explore more to make sure that freedoms aren't in fact impinged on by this bill. I'm not sure how that would happen but it's possible.Actually it was the Electronic Identity Verification Act 2012 that was the genesis for RealMe which I think was introduced in 2013—I found my notes which is quite helpful. Hon Member: With about a minute and 47 to go.STUART SMITH: Well yeah. That was quite a big moment in time and that was only eight years ago—only eight years ago—and it's already outdated. It didn't take me eight years to find my notes.I go back to my starting point. Actually the biggest risk people have in the digital space is what they put up there willingly sharing information with not a thought to the future and that's mostly in the social media space. But it's also with email platforms where people are exposing their private information to the possibility of a hacker in particular.I don't have a lot more to say on this. I've had my good turn on it. I congratulate Dr Clark on bringing this bill to Parliament. I think it is something that's timely. It came out of of course the iterative process right back to the Electronic Identity Verification Act in 2012. We need it most certainly but we also want it to work and not impinge on innovation from the private sector where we know all the best innovations do in fact come from. So with that I commend the bill to the House.