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Welcome to DINZ 2025!
Ngā mihi nui kia koutou katoa, warm greetings to you.
I do hope you’ve had some R&R over the holiday break. However long it was, it’s never long enough!
DINZ has powered into the New Year early with its traditional Summer Series, which started last week to take advantage of global standards expert and my longtime friend Andrew Hughes being in the country for ISO SC37 (Biometrics) meetings. Despite holidays we had a fantastic turnout for ‘Deepfakes & ID verification: Your standards survival kit for the modern age’. View the video recording here.
Next in the Summer Series is ‘Payments for the Next Generation’, led by DINZ member Payments NZ. This session aims to inform and seek feedback from the DINZ community on the digital identity component of its strategic paper currently out for consultation.
The following months will see sessions led by other DINZ members relating to the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework and the digital trust ecosystem more broadly. Stay tuned for further announcements. Speaking of members, it’s great to welcome recent new members Cianaa Technologies and SecYour. Among other things Cianaa is in the business of evaluating service providers under the DISTF and SecYour is in the business of providing identity services. Just coincidental; no connection between them is implied!
Don’t forget DINZ’s monthly virtual Coffee Chat series starts next week. Last year’s registrants were given priority and are re-registering. So don’t delay, register now.
The year-end brings a flurry of public sector announcements and this year was no exception. First up was the NZ Banking Association’s announcement of the launch of GetVerified – the name for the confirmation of payee service that banks will be progressively rolling out. I’ve selected this post to give you the contextual low-down. Then just before the break, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner announced the long expected Code of Practice for Biometrics. As you’ll see from our submission page, DINZ has consistently argued for detailed guidance first, with regulation for exceptions or repeated poor implementation, because regulation creates some negative effects with unintended consequences. Nonetheless, we are where we are and DINZ will help members however it can.
On the international front NHI (Non Human Identity, once termed NPE ‘Non Person Entity’) is happily returning to ‘top of mind’ with this from OWASP. Romek also covered this in his weekly email and my long-time fellow Identerati travellers Mike Schwartz and Heather Flanagan shared this very interesting post (note that with her IDPro hat on, Heather interviewed DINZ Exec Councillor Abhi Bandopadhyay). Again, I’ve chosen a link that I think provides more colour and flavour to the discussion. And with matters raised here very much in mind, take a look at this announcement from DINZ liaison member OWF as we progress towards the pointy end of digital wallet development (is it ‘a thing’ long term though?).
Last but not least, DINZ Chair 2022-2024 Paul Platen drew key statistics from this SC Media article. Very poignant, posing the question what Aotearoa’s equivalent numbers would be. Take a look at Paul’s post here.
I’m looking forward to the year ahead, with projects in DINZ Working Groups and Special Interest Groups, and sharing co-created papers on barriers to Fintech innovation and competition that we are undertaking in collaboration with relevant public and private sector bodies. With Minister Bayly’s oversight I think this will lead to positive change. All up, I really do think that 2025 can be the year we make Digital Trust real.
Read the full news here: Welcome to DINZ 2025!
