Mallard Trevor: Electronic Identity Verification Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Electronic Identity Verification Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 13 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6527. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I want to thank members opposite and the members of the Green Party who were involved in the Electronic Identity Verification Bill and to compliment the Hon Ruth Dyson on her chairing of the Government Administration Committee. I think this bill and a measure that will follow are bills where there was a considerable amount of agreement amongst members as to the direction. Where there were changes that we wanted to make to the legislation there was I think good consideration taken of the suggestions and the committee ended up with the sort of unanimity that can be had if people listen to evidence consider submissions make some changes and act in a way that is designed to get sustainable legislation rather than things that are highly politicised and likely to change. 
The igovt identity verification service has been in place for a couple of years now for people wanting to authenticate their identity in their interactions with the Department of Internal Affairs in respect of the Births Deaths and Marriages registry. But it has been something that has been very limited. What this bill does is allow the service to expand in its availability to all members of the public and allow more agencies to use this service to identify the clients. What it does effectively is reduce the hassle of people having to submit documents over and over again. I might say having recently dealt with the Department of Internal Affairs on the question of a passport renewal that the changes that have occurred in recent years around the simplification and not having to provide the same documentation again and again on renewal is something that I think is real progress if it can be continued—and if we go back to what is effectively an old-fashioned notion about the indivisibility of Government. The Crown is not meant to be divisible. You deal with the Crown. I think the way that we have developed over the last 20 30 or 50 years has been that we have been dealing with ministries and departments in their own separate silos and in quite different ways and with different standards rather than dealing with the Crown as a whole. My view is that what this bill does is allow for individuals to deal with the Crown as a whole and I think that is something that is very useful. 
I think it is fair to say that since this bill was introduced there have been some questions around the security of information held by the Crown. I am not absolutely certain that this bill would have had a clean run through the select committee process if it had been introduced 3 months or 6 months later than it was. I think that at that stage there might have been quite a lot more debate around it. But my view is that the principles that are involved in it and the legislation itself are OK. But I think that what has happened since—and I am sure there will be further discussion as we go through the Committee stage—will mean there will be more focus on security and proper arrangements around the legislation and on the examples of the multiple ACC leaks both the ones that hopefully might be viewed as careless out of the ACC and those that appear to have been deliberate which have come from sources yet to be finally established. But I think what we are focusing on at the moment is a Crown with a series of departments and other Crown entities where there are some real questions around the security of personal information. As we head into an electronic identity verification service people will want to know that their information is not going to be accidentally disclosed through this sort of system. 
It is not as if ACC has been the only case and it is not as if Judith Collins has been the only Minister in charge of the sorts of breaches that have occurred. There have been some in the Inland Revenue Department that I regard very seriously. I think the idea that one’s information is held by the Inland Revenue Department and that it is sacrosanct is something that is very important as it is frankly with Work and Income. The fact that there have been through the various portals the availability of and the fact of massive breaches is something that we will have to consider as we work our way through the legislation. Then of course more recently there has been the Novopay breach that became apparent over the last 4 or 5 days—the fact that a lot of personal information of individuals has been made available. I think all of those things slowly reduce people’s trust in the ability of the Crown as a whole to hold information securely. A system like this which is a voluntary system is going to depend on people trusting the Crown to hold the information. 
I think my colleagues know that some of my views on this information are somewhat different and I do not necessarily have strong views as others do in this area in that I think there are a lot of things that would be simpler. I think a small microchip in an earring could be something that would be quite useful for people carrying their information around and sharing it with Government departments. It would mean that you could have a consistent approach and the information could be updated and through that—well Mr Chairperson Tisch I think that as a rural member you would be aware of the advantages of eartagging and the electronic systems that are available. 
I might say that in my electorate the Times-7 group has some very good systems. They are somewhat questionable as to their privacy but they use it for conference systems that show where at a particular conference individuals are. People wear a tag either a badge or something on a lanyard around their neck and as they go through particular doors it shows that they are at this particular seminar or that seminar. I think unfortunately it has shown on a number of—[ 
Interruption 
] No it is not quite the same as the badges that we carry because one does not have to swipe these ones; one just passes through a door and one’s identity is recorded. But unfortunately for some people recently at a real estate conference in Auckland it recorded not only the fact that they went in but the fact that they went out and on occasions people’s long absences were noted and sometimes grouped and that I think led to some questions of privacy and lack thereof. 
I am sure that we are not heading towards that sort of system with this but what I hope and it might take 5 or 10 years and a development of trust in the Government and its ability to hold information securely and to respect people’s privacy—[ 
Interruption 
] Well a change of Government obviously. There has got to be a change of Government before that happens and a building of trust. But I hope that eventually this sort of system becomes more or less universal and that we do have standard systems that people are all prepared to be part of. I hope that in that way we have a simpler system and we do not end up with multiple systems with some people bringing their paper—