Digital ID opens to the private sector in December 2026
15 million myIDs. 80 million verifications. From November 2026 the private sector can participate. This is the new identity layer.
From 30 November 2026, private sector entities can apply to participate in the Australian Government Digital ID System as either accredited entities or relying parties. The system already has 15 million myIDs and processed 80 million verifications in its first year. This is not a pilot. It is established infrastructure opening to commercial participation.
What Digital ID is
The Digital ID Act 2024 established the Australian Government Digital ID System (AGDIS), providing individuals with secure, voluntary ways to verify their identity online with government and businesses. It is co-regulated by the ACCC and OAIC, which means competition and privacy objectives are baked into the governance framework (a deliberate choice that distinguishes it from purely market-led approaches in other jurisdictions).
Following consultation in 2025, reforms to the Digital ID Rules and Accreditation Rules were introduced in November 2025, with further refinements to the redress framework consulted in early 2026.
Why this matters for marketing and analytics
Digital ID creates a standardised, verified identity layer. For marketing, this has three potential applications.
Identity resolution. Probabilistic identity matching (the cookie-and-device-graph model) is degrading under privacy regulation and platform changes. Digital ID offers a deterministic, consent-based alternative. The quality of identity resolution directly affects the quality of attribution, personalisation, and audience targeting.
Age verification. The social media age restrictions and Phase 2 Online Safety Codes require age verification that goes beyond self-declaration. Digital ID provides a compliant mechanism that is already at scale.
Consent management. A verified identity layer simplifies the problem of tying consent records to individuals across devices and sessions. When you know who someone is (with their consent), consent management becomes more reliable and auditable.
The strategic view
Digital ID is part of a broader shift toward consent-based, verifiable identity infrastructure in Australia. It sits alongside CDR expansion and the Privacy Act reforms as part of a new data governance architecture. Organisations that engage with this infrastructure early have a structural advantage in identity resolution, compliance, and customer trust. Those that wait will be building on an identity infrastructure that is progressively less capable and less compliant.
IMO this is one of the more under-discussed pieces of Australian digital policy right now, and the marketing implications are larger than most teams have priced in.