The Department of Home Affairs has told a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that it has purchased a facial recognition algorithm from a vendor to be used for Australia's Face Identification Service (FIS).
Notification on almost all goods and services procured by the Australian government is published for public consumption, but the department told the joint committee on Thursday that it will remain tight-lipped on the vendor contracted after receiving immunity.
"The FIS enlivens significantly a threat to assumed identities, so that's security and law enforcement covert operatives and witnesses under protection, so we received an exemption under the Commonwealth procurement rules to not publish the identity, the name of the vendor that's providing the facial recognition service," Assistant Secretary of Identity Security Andrew Rice explained.
"It's just reducing the potential vectors of attack."
Rice told the joint committee that as all of the vendors providing biometric or facial recognition services use different algorithms, naming the vendor employed would potentially increase the threat of attack.
The Australian government in February introduced two Bills into the House of Representatives[1] that would allow for the creation of a system to match photos against identities of citizens stored in various federal and state agencies: The Identity-matching Services Bill 2018 (IMS Bill) and the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2018.
The first Bill authorises the Peter Dutton-led department[2] to operate a central hub for communicating between agencies, while the second would allow for real-time crime fighting, according to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.
The pair of Bills make good on an agreement reached at COAG[3] in October to introduce a national system allowing for biometric matching.
Of concern to the joint committee probing both Bills