Digital ID Repeal Bill 2024: what it would undo and the argument against Australia's digital identity system

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Digital ID Repeal Bill 2024: what it would undo and the argument against Australia's digital identity system

Six senators — Alex Antic, Ralph Babet, Matt Canavan, Pauline Hanson, Gerard Rennick and Malcolm Roberts — introduced the Digital ID Repeal Bill 2024 in the Senate on 26 June 2024. The bill is a private senator's bill and remains before the Senate at the first-reading stage. It has not passed either house and is not law. The bill would repeal the Digital ID Act 2024 in its entirety. That Act — which passed Parliament with bipartisan support in May 2024 and received Royal Assent shortly after — established Australia's first national statutory framework for digital identity services. It created the Australian Government Digital ID System (AGDIS), a voluntary accreditation scheme for public and private sector digital ID providers, and a suite of privacy and consumer safeguards. The Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Act 2024 made consequential amendments to integrate the framework with existing Commonwealth law, and the repeal bill would reverse those as well. The commencement provision is drafted to avoid retrospectivity. If the repeal bill passed before the Digital ID Act commenced, the repeal takes effect from the moment after commencement. If the repeal bill passed after commencement, the repeal takes effect from the start of the day it receives Royal Assent. In either case, the repeal does not operate on past conduct. The sponsors' case rests on a single central claim set out in the EM: 'While the Digital ID Act 2024 purports to create a "voluntary" system of Digital ID in Australia, its practical operation and the exceptions provided to Digital ID being voluntary will result in a Digital ID system that is, for all intents and purposes, mandatory if Australians wish to participate in society.' The EM does not identify which specific exceptions the sponsors rely on, nor does it provide evidence for how a voluntary accreditation framework would become functionally mandatory. To assess this claim it is necessary to understand what the Digital ID Act 2024 actually establishes. The Act creates a two-part system. The first part is an accreditation scheme: digital identity service providers — both government bodies (such as the ATO's myGovID, now renamed myID) and private sector providers — can apply to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to be accredited against privacy, security, fraud protection, accessibility and user experience standards. Accredited providers are listed on a public register and can display a trustmark. The second part is the AGDIS, a government-operated identity exchange that acts as a 'broker' between a person's chosen digital identity provider and a service they want to use. The AGDIS itself does not hold identity data; it facilitates a verified transaction so that a person does not need to share their raw identity documents (passport, driver licence, birth certificate) with each service they use. The Act specifically addresses voluntariness: section 16 provides that a person 'is not required to have, or to use, a digital ID' and that a person must not be discriminated against for not having or not using one. The Act also includes a range of privacy protections: it prohibits the use of digital ID information for surveillance or direct marketing; requires express consent before sharing biometric information (such as a facial scan used for identity verification); requires accredited entities to notify the Australian Information Commissioner of eligible data breaches; and imposes civil penalties for breaches of privacy and security obligations, with maximum penalties of up to $10 million or more for serious breaches. The repeal bill's statement of compatibility with human rights asserts the repeal advances human rights 'by ensuring that Australians are not forced to participate in centralised control of their identification information in order to participate in basic domestic and professional settings.' However, the Digital ID Act 2024 was itself subject to scrutiny by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which raised no concerns about the Act creating a mandatory identification system. Several privacy and civil society organisations, including the Australian Privacy Foundation and Digital Rights Watch, engaged with the legislative process and focused their concerns on the adequacy of safeguards — such as the independence of oversight, the breadth of exemptions and the strength of consent provisions — rather than on voluntariness or compulsion. The six sponsors represent a mix of crossbench and minor-party senators. Antic, Canavan and Rennick were LNP senators sitting on the crossbench at the time; Babet was from the United Australia Party; and Hanson and Roberts were from Pauline Hanson's One Nation. None are government senators, and the bill does not have government support. The Digital ID Act 2024 passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support from the major parties. The repeal bill remains at first-reading stage. It has not progressed to debate or a vote in either house. The bill was introduced shortly after the Digital ID Act passed, and the six senators used the explanatory memorandum to advance their position that digital identity systems, even ostensibly voluntary ones, create a pathway toward surveillance and centralised control of personal information. The repeal bill has not attracted co-sponsors beyond the original six and has not been referred to a committee for inquiry.

This is a federal system guide. State constitutions, parliaments and local-government laws can allocate comparable functions differently.

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Evidence review

What the bill proposes

The Digital ID Repeal Bill 2024 is a private senator's bill that proposes to repeal the Digital ID Act 2024 and the Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Act 2024 in their entirety. The bill would also make consequential amendments to six other Acts to remove references to the Digital ID framework. The six affected Acts are the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006, the Australian Passports Act 2005, the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act 1975, the National Health Act 1953, the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.

The bill is sponsored by six senators — Alex Antic, Ralph Babet, Matthew Canavan, Pauline Hanson, Gerard Rennick and Malcolm Roberts — drawn from the Coalition, One Nation and the crossbench. Their central argument is that the Digital ID Act 2024 creates a framework that, they contend, could lead to a mandatory national digital identity system and that this represents an unacceptable expansion of government power over individual Australians. The sponsors argue that voluntary systems can become de facto mandatory when access to government services is made contingent on participation.

It is important to understand what the bill would do in practical terms. If passed, the bill would remove the legislative basis for the Australian Government's Digital ID system — the framework that allows Australians to verify their identity online without repeatedly providing sensitive documents to different organisations. The Digital ID Act 2024 established privacy safeguards, including a prohibition on using Digital ID as a form of internal government identifier and restrictions on the collection and use of biometric information. These protections would cease to have statutory force if the Act were repealed.

Evidence review

What the Digital ID Act 2024 does

To understand the repeal bill, it is necessary to understand what it would undo. The Digital ID Act 2024, which passed Parliament in May 2024, established a national voluntary accreditation scheme for digital identity providers, created the Australian Government Digital ID System (AGDIS) — a government identity exchange service — and introduced privacy and consumer safeguards. Section 16 of the Act explicitly states that participation is voluntary and prohibits discrimination against people who do not use a digital ID. The Act does not create a centralised database, a single government-issued digital identity number, or a digital ID card. It requires express consent for biometric information sharing, prohibits using digital ID data for surveillance or marketing, and imposes civil penalties on accredited entities for breaches.

Evidence review

The sponsors' argument

The sponsors' central claim, as stated in the explanatory memorandum, is that while the Digital ID Act 'purports to create a "voluntary" system', its 'practical operation and the exceptions provided to Digital ID being voluntary will result in a Digital ID system that is, for all intents and purposes, mandatory if Australians wish to participate in society.' The explanatory memorandum does not identify which specific exceptions the sponsors rely on, nor does it provide evidence for the functional compulsion claim.

Evidence review

What the repeal bill would undo

Schedule 1 of the bill repeals the Digital ID Act 2024 in its entirety. Schedule 2 repeals the Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Act 2024 and reverses the amendments that Act made to the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977, the Age Discrimination Act 2004, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979, the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, the Privacy Act 1988, and the Taxation Administration Act 1953. The commencement clause is designed to avoid retrospectivity — the repeal would take effect from either the moment after the Digital ID Act commences (if the repeal passes first) or the start of Royal Assent day (if the Digital ID Act has already commenced).

Evidence review

Human rights and privacy claims

The repeal bill's statement of compatibility asserts the repeal would advance human rights 'by ensuring that Australians are not forced to participate in centralised control of their identification information.' The Digital ID Act 2024 was itself subject to parliamentary human rights scrutiny and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights did not raise concerns about mandatory participation. The privacy protections in the Digital ID Act — including prohibitions on surveillance use and marketing, express consent for biometrics, and data breach notification obligations — would be removed if the repeal bill passed.

Evidence review

The bill's legislative status

The Digital ID Repeal Bill 2024 was introduced in the Senate on 26 June 2024. The bill is currently before the Senate. Under Australian parliamentary procedure, private senators' bills are debated during dedicated time slots for private senators' business, and their progress depends on the government allocating sufficient Senate time and on the government's disposition toward the bill.

The bill has not yet been brought to a vote on the second reading. The second reading debate is the stage at which the Senate considers the principle of the bill, and it is during this debate that the government would normally indicate whether it supports or opposes the legislation. As of July 2026, the government had not stated a formal position on the bill.

The Digital ID Act 2024, which this bill seeks to repeal, remains in force. The Australian Government's Digital ID system continues to operate under that Act, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as the Digital ID Regulator and accreditation of Digital ID providers proceeding according to the legislative framework. The repeal bill would need to pass both houses of Parliament and receive royal assent before the Digital ID Act 2024 could be repealed.

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