[LINK] Getting a Company Director ID Online was Difficult But Not Impossible

[Roger Clarke]

On 26/11/21 11:22 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
> As the director of an Australian company, I had until the end of the
> month to register for a new Director ID. This can be done online, by
> phone, or on paper. Given the deadline was approaching, I decided to
> attempt it online. This took about 20 minutes, and there were a few
> difficulties, but it was not too bad.
> https://blog.tomw.net.au/2021/11/getting-company-director-id-was.html

Mid-afternoon Fri 26 Nov (after receiving a reminder from my tax agent),
the phone alternative took 15 mins in the queue (while I kept working),
then 15 mins of conversation, despite their system falling over twice.

Interestingly, the two queries out to DVS worked quickly, and it was the
in-house ATO linkage between applications that's flakey.

(Hmmm, I mis-typed that and got 'fakey' - a Freudian slip maybe?).

https://www.idmatch.gov.au


Aside:  My wife hasn't received a notice to say she needs to sign up or
be subject to threats of fines.  It's unclear why, because they seem to
have gone for a big bang approach rather than phased implementation.


BTW, a while back I had a look at biometrics as a possible way of
addressing the social ill of phoenixing:
http://www.rogerclarke.com/ID/BiomRegI.html#T

I concluded it was impracticable and offered negative payback.

I wonder what a well-performed business case for a document-based scheme
would look like.

I expect it will be ineffective - assuming that the purpose is to
identify, prosecute and ban phoenix directors, and deter that category
of behaviour.

There are many opportunities for naughty people to get around all forms
of (id)entity authentication.  So this is a registration scheme for
non-naughty people like Tom and me ('Trust us'), and for respectable,
i.e. white-collar, naughty people like, say, professional company
directors.

And our entries represent yet more opportunities for naughty people to
get around (id)entity authentication obstacles.

However, the purpose is doubtless to be seen to be doing something,
anything.  So it probably passes muster.  (Security theatre again).

It's not particularly intrusive.  (I avoided being forced into creating
a myGov account, which was the only way offered to do it online.  I had
to say 'no, I'm unable to do it online').  So I treated the 15 mins as a
minor bureaucratic irritant.


-- 
Roger Clarke                            mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
T: +61 2 6288 6916   http://www.xamax.com.au  http://www.rogerclarke.com

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University