The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, said today that the recognition of the system by the government would "provide greater impetus for e-commerce in Australia by helping to generate greater public and business confidence in the security of online information and transactions".
"Mutual recognition between the private sector and public sector systems will promote trust in the online environment and facilitate online transactions," said Senator Alston.
The government's Gatekeeper strategy was laid out in 1998, and is now under the auspices of the Gatekeeper Policy Advisory Committee (GPAC). This group is charged with overseeing the introduction of public key technology into Commonwealth Government agencies.
Identrus is an organisation formed by a number of global tier-one finance companies attempting to encourage large cross-border transactions by enabling companies to have trust in their trading partners online identities. Australia is the first country in the world to formally recognise an Identrus implementation for use in the government sector.
ANZ Bank created its Identrus program based on the Australian-developed Webpay system.
Senator Alston said the European Union was working towards recognition, and that the United States plans to follow Australia's lead and use this country's experiences to guide its recognition process.
