From “reclaimthenet.org”
Victoria calls it a paperwork fix for kindergarten, but the state just gave newborns a digital identity before they can say their own names.
The government of the Australian state of Victoria is building identity infrastructure that starts at birth. The state has launched a digital birth certificate trial this month, turning paper documents into app-based credentials that link newborns to a national digital identity system before they’re old enough to understand what that means.
The pilot runs through Service Victoria’s app, where parents can store a child’s birth certificate as a digital credential for kindergarten enrollment.
Three local councils are testing the system. Service Victoria frames this as convenience, which it partly is, while constructing the foundation for lifetime digital identity tracking that extends well beyond preschool registration.
Right now, the trial covers children born after February 19, 2019, who hold Victorian birth certificates and are enrolling in participating council areas. That’s a narrow slice. The infrastructure being built isn’t.
Getting the digital certificate requires more than downloading an app. Parents need the original paper certificate, additional identification documents, and a verified digital identity already active in their Service Victoria account. Submit all that, wait for verification, and the digital birth certificate appears in your wallet shortly after.
Birth certificates are becoming infrastructure credentials. Victoria’s treating them as foundational documents that reduce friction in identity checks and service enrollment, particularly for families proving eligibility repeatedly across different systems. That’s the stated benefit. The actual function is different: these credentials create persistent links between a person’s legal identity and every service they use, starting from infancy.
On its own, this may not mean that much. But the timing matters. Victoria launched this trial after Australia’s Digital ID bill passed parliament, positioning state-level credentials within emerging national frameworks for accreditation and trust.
States are moving independently while federal rules solidify, creating a patchwork where Victorian digital birth certificates might eventually validate identity across government and private services nationwide.
Service Victoria calls these credentials “wallet-based,” implying user control. But it’s more complex than that. Parents control whether to use the digital version, but they don’t control what happens to the verification data collected during issuance, how long it’s retained, or which systems can access it once the credential exists. The wallet holds the certificate. The state holds everything else.
Digital birth certificates raise questions Service Victoria hasn’t addressed publicly. How does revocation work if a certificate needs updating? How do relying parties validate authenticity without creating new verification burdens? What happens when a child turns 18 and wants to manage their own credentials? Who owns the identity data accumulated from birth onward?
Victoria’s pilot doesn’t answer these questions. It establishes the technical capability to issue digital birth certificates while leaving governance details for later, like it’s an afterthought. That’s concerning. Identity systems built first and governed later tend to expand beyond their original scope, accumulating new uses and data flows that weren’t part of the initial design.
But that’s likely the point. Parents enrolling their kids in preschool aren’t being asked whether they want their child in a lifetime digital identity system. They’re being offered a convenient app that happens to construct that system as a byproduct.
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