Announcement of change to Australians’ accounts from 2024 comes amid concern over ‘scam-in-a-box kits’ being sold on dark web
Australians will no longer have to remember their username and password to access government services online as part of an overhaul to stop billions of dollars being lost to scammers.
Next year, the government will introduce passkeys such as face or fingerprint recognition instead of usernames and passwords, making it much harder for scammers to gain access.“Passkeys will be introduced to bring myGov further into the 21st century, allowing Australians the ability to use biometric options such as facial recognition to access the site,” the government services minister, Bill Shorten, said in a statement.
The scam-in-a-box products are used to create fake websites and provide the specialist knowledge required to launch phishing attacks on Centrelink, Australian Tax Office and Medicare accounts. Some can identify when they’re dealing with more IT-savvy users, and direct them to the official myGov website. Many fake websites are almost identical to the real version.
“The other committee members bring strong, balanced and wide ranging insights across fields such as governance, service delivery ethics, use of technology in digital service delivery and advocacy for both customers and service delivery staff.”