With identity crime costing Australia up to $3 billion each year and being linked to organised crime and terrorism, the importance of identity checking has never been greater.
Cited is proud to be one of only eight approved Gateway Service Providers to the Australian Government’s Document Verification Service (DVS), a national online system that enables a comparison of a person’s identifying information with government records.
On 7th February 2018, Cited released new functionality that enables organisations to submit requests for information verification through Cited, and receive a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response from the DVS within seconds.
For an individual, identity is everything – people need to be able to prove who they are in order to get a job, buy a house or apply for a passport. For a business, the risks of hiring people who are not who they say they are, are significant and potentially costly.
The DVS enables organisations to compare a customer’s identifying information with a government record. In 2017, the DVS processed 32 million transactions.
As a Gateway Service Provider, Cited is authorised to direct information match requests to and from the DVS hub about identity documents including:
- Australian Passport
- Australian Driver’s Licence
- Citizenship Certificate
- Medicare Card
- Registration by Descent
- Visa
- Birth Certificate
- Marriage Certificate
- Change of Name Certificate
- Immigration Card
The DVS is not a database and does not store personal information and any requests sent to the DVS are encrypted and sent via a secure communications pathway.
The DVS is under the control of the federal Department of Home Affairs and was introduced through the Council of Australian Governments’ National Identity Security Strategy. The Strategy was developed after the Council agreed in 2005 that the preservation and protection of a person’s identity is a key concern and a right of all Australians.
At the release of the 2016 Attorney-General’s report, Identity Crime and Misuse in Australia, the Hon Michael Keenan MP, Minister for Justice, commented “Identity crime continues to be one of the most common crimes affecting our community and is also a key enabler of serious and organised crime. In addition to considerable financial losses, a significant proportion of victims experience adverse impacts on their mental or physical health, reputations and general wellbeing.”
Cited works with DVS to help you protect one of your most important assets – your identity. Contact us for further details.