eftpos, Queensland Government, Meeco and Powertech partner to demonstrate the potential of ID credentials

eftpos today unveiled the results of an Australian-first digital identity trial between eftpos’ Digital Identity solution, connectID, Queensland Government Department of Transport and Main Roads, Australian FinTech Meeco and engineering and technical services leader Powertech that shows major productivity benefits that can be unleashed across the wider Australian economy through industry adoption of digital ID.

The results confirm digital ID technology is ready to scale and deliver productivity, compliance and risk management benefits across any industry where verifying the skills and qualifications of an employee are essential – including health, aged care, manufacturing, transport, training and education and all forms of construction, repair and maintenance.

Held on actual worksites in the field, the digital ID trials show the time to verify compulsory safety, licencing and training credentials and certificates required by workers before they start on a job can be reduced from three days to just 30 minutes.

The trial also used cutting edge distributed ledger technologies, powered by global distributed ledger network, Hedera Hashgraph, for the registration and verification of the credential records. eftpos is a Governing Council member of Hedera and Meeco is a partner of Hedera.

Managing Director of eftpos Digital Identity, Andrew Black, said the trial demonstrated the real-word benefits digital identity can yield for both workers and businesses, with results showing:

• The time for a HR team to onboard a new worker was reduced from 72 hours to 30 minutes
• The time for a new worker to provide necessary credentials information was reduced from 48 hours to 30 minutes
• 100% of participants (both HR teams and employees) found the new process easier than the current process.

Black said the trial clearly demonstrated the enormous benefits of government and the private sector working together to resolve actual business challenges and drive a stronger economy.

“This trial shows the practical benefits that digital identity can bring when solving everyday business issues, like massive lifts in convenience and productivity,” Black said. “By using the connectID network to deliver digital credentials sourced from the Department of Transport and Main Roads, these critical infrastructure employees and operators were able to save two days and get to work faster.”

Katryna Dow, Chief Executive and Founder of Meeco said, “In this case, being able to securely verify drivers’ licence credentials stored by the Department of Transport and Main Roads in real time with the employee’s permission, shows what’s possible when Governments and the private sector work together to achieve great business outcomes. When digital ID is deployed at scale, the benefits will increase and be shared across the Australian economy.

“By using the Meeco mobile identity wallet in combination with Hedera’s proven distributed ledger technology we’re able to embed trust into the very forefront of necessary everyday interactions like credential checks. Enabling employees to participate transparently in the creation, access and permission of immutable identity, safety and compliance records was easy and fast. As a result, benefits such as time saving and convenience were realised for all the workforce stakeholders.

Black added, “The same sort of productivity, compliance and risk management benefits could be achieved by businesses in almost any industry where verifying the skills and qualifications of an employee are essential – health care, aged care, manufacturing, transportation, training and education and all forms of construction, repair and maintenance are obvious examples. Customers can be given peace of mind that the people performing key tasks are fully and currently qualified and businesses can manage their compliance obligations easily and cost effectively.”

The Queensland Government’s Transport and Main Roads Customer Oriented Registration and Licencing General Manager Chris Goh said the digital ID trial was an important step in creating a trusted credentials ecosystem that creates convenience and assurance.

“Digital Identity has been largely talked about as authentication and logins. Credentials like driver licences are still the dominant form of representing identity in the community. Linking digital credentials to a digital account creates a complete digital identity solution, and we are very grateful to be able to work with industry and businesses to prove and realise that vision.”

eftpos’ connectID is a ‘broker’ between identity providers – organisations that securely hold identity data on behalf of their customers – and merchants or government departments and other relying parties that need to verify who they are dealing with or receive identity information that they can trust. eftpos is uniquely placed to offer this service, particularly for interactions requiring a payment.

While connectID securely facilitates the identity verification or data exchange, it does not store the identity data. Identity providers store consumer identities and take responsibility for providing this secure information only under the consent of the identity owner. In this way, the identity owner – the consumer – controls who receives and uses their identity data.

Paul Carmignani, Powertech’s Managing Director is responsible for specialists working on some of the world’s biggest mining, oil and gas, renewables, infrastructure and defence projects. “Reducing the time and complexity of verifying workplace credentials with digital ID means our people can get on the job faster. This reduces downtime, avoidable waiting costs and keeps critical projects on”-track and Australians working.

eftpos’ connectID is now working with the partners to scale the capability and explore other markets where this use case would benefit Australian consumers, businesses and public services.”