Australia's Face Verification Service launches

Australia’s new biometric Face Verification Service (FVS) project has launched in its first phase.

The FVS will initially allow the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and AFP access to citizenship images held by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

The service will be expanded in the future to provide other government agencies access, and to include images such as visa, passport and driver's licence photos. Potential applications for the system include verifying the identity of passport applicants.

In addition, a Face Identification Service is expected to launch next year, which will help officers investigating serious offences determine the identity of unknown persons of interest.

Use of the FIS will be restricted to major crimes such as child sexual exploitation or armed robbery. To guard against the potential for false positives, it will also be limited to investigators with training into how to interpret the results.

The system is being managed by the Attorney-General’s Department on behalf of participating agencies.

Another purpose for the system is to help combat identity crime, which is estimated to cause losses of around $2.2 billion per year across Australia. Each year around one in 20 Australians incur financial losses from identity theft, the Attorney General’s Department said.

Privacy safeguards have been built into the system based on feedback from independent privacy impact assessments conducted throughout the design and implementation phases. These include requiring participating agencies to agree to comply with formal data sharing agreements.

Image courtesy of Leszek Leszczynski under CC