Digital ID - awesome or scary - the future though!

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G'day G'day. Great to have you company and thank you for downloading.

Once again the EFTM podcast.

Trev along here and look forward to talking to you if you've got a tech question or a tech comment.

I'd love to be of assistance or just shoot the breeze with you about tech.

We've got a couple of people to talk to today. Plus I want to talk digital ID. Malcolm Roberts favourite topic.

Do you remember that episode? Wild.

But there's been an announcement by the government about digital ID.

So I wanted to dig into it a little bit and try and understand it.

So we will talk to one of the managers of the Australian Payments Network Australian Payments Plus Connect ID.

Remember we talked to them about the age verification system that they were introducing with Snapchat and other platforms.

Well Connect ID is in its simplest form a digital ID.

And so how and where can it be used and when are we going to get it in more places and should we be worried?

Obviously they're going to say no. But I'll leave you to judge based on what they and I say.

That's what we do here. It's all good.

But most importantly we'd love to hear from you as well.

If you have a tech question or you know someone else with a tech question you can refer other people to me as well.

You can tell other people just text Trev and he'll see if he can answer you.

If you do do that please let them know it's a podcast and I'm not just going to ring them randomly.

I had a funny interaction with someone. I was lining up someone for the EV podcast.

So producer Rob works hard lining up the callers for this show.

But for some reason he hasn't taken over lining up the EV callers.

That's a conversation for another day.

He'll probably want more money so I'll have to clip money off Steven and it's just complicated.

No I'm joking. But I was texting a guy and I said are you available to talk and they go who is this?

And I went scroll up like you text me.

And then it turns out they were driving so they just got my message and it was like that's a bit weird.

And then they said yeah sure I'd love to chat but don't want to be recorded or on air or anything.

And I'm like well that's pretty much what we do.

There's no real benefit for us in just taking ten minutes of our time to talk to you randomly

about your questions or issues or comments or whatever it might be.

So it was just funny because why else would you text?

But anyway if you do refer me to someone please let them know that I am a broadcast commentator

who will talk to them while recording them.

It'll be just them and me.

That's how we operate. But it's a bit of fun.

There's a bit going on as you will have seen at eftm.com lots of products and stuff I can't even talk about now.

I've been wearing a product all morning that I'm going to talk about probably tomorrow.

There's some fascinating stuff happening in shall we just say the audio space.

I've been talking all week on the radio also about JBL's new range of headphones so hopefully they arrive today

and I can have a bit of a muck around with those as well.

Lots of little products to play with.

I've only got a week and a half before we head to London with Amazon for their Deliver the Future event

and then we're off to Cupertino, California with Apple for the Worldwide Developers Conference

which is just two and a half weeks away give or take.

The diary is filling up pretty fast and I had to have a conversation with Stephen

a bit of planning conversation about podcasting because obviously I also plan later this year

to have a little family holiday with the kids and my father-in-law and my wife

were taking my father-in-law and the kids to New York to see the Yankees.

My father-in-law is a big Yankees fan so why the hell not we say.

So we're going after the hopeful.

Hopefully Apple has an event in September and I just go from there

because my family is all booked to be in San Francisco that week.

So if Apple delays their September iPhone event

my wife and family will be on holidays in the US and I'll have to duck out

and go back to Apple so that's life that they understand.

The turbulent nature of these things.

I may not know that until a week beforehand, God love it.

So we'll play with that as it happens but that's later in the year

so there'll be no EFTM podcast during that time as well.

But there will be Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars, there will be the movie show

and there might be a couple episodes of Two Blokes Talking Tech with me

but I think probably we might enlist the help of Valence Quinn

from Gadget Guy to pop in and do some weekly stuff with Steven

so I don't have to be complete weirdo on holidays doing podcasts

but I'll have products to review over there so it's a bit of a working holiday

but more holiday than work.

Anyway all of that is to say you can't rely on this show happening every week

because in two weeks I'll be in London and I don't know that I want to get up

but whatever hour of the morning this is, 1am or something

or no midnight it'll be right now and do talk back calls with Australia.

I just don't see that happening but we might, you never know.

We also might have cool interviews so I'm trying my best to remember

when I get cool emails to say oh let's just do it on the podcast

so I think those are fun things for us to do so when I'm with Amazon

I'll try and have some conversations that I can bring to you on the podcast

just like today's a conversation with Andrew from Payments Plus Network

you know trying to enhance this as to more than just your calls

so trying my best to remember at all times that I've got this platform

and can use it in the same way that I just dropped such an Adelaan interview here

because I thought why not, like I did it I may as well share it you know what I'm saying

but I always welcome your feedback and it's always welcome

is it always pleasantly welcome to know

but I take it for what it is

so please don't hesitate to let me know what you think

0477657657

or jump onto the app and click Ask Trev or the website of course

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I'm not going to pre-announce anything else

there's things going on I'm playing with stuff I'm meddling

but we'll get to that in the fullness of time

for now though let's get to your calls and talk digital ID

047657 that's the text line thanks to Vodafone

get in touch and Ask Trev today

great to have you company thank you for listening downloading

and thank you for getting in touch always good to hear from you

it doesn't matter whether you want buying advice or you want to brag about something

I'm here for you and can take you call

Andrew's on the line can I Andrew?

hey Hagon

yeah really good mate what can I do for you

hey looking to upgrade my home

Wi-Fi and yeah just looking for some advice

I'm currently running an airport extreme but

we're getting the NBN on

and yeah just need some

looking at Wi-Fi 7 future proofing got two small kids

that are only going to use it more and more so

how old are the kids?

8 and 2

oh yes they are going to use it way more

what do you have

describe the home to me

single story multi-story

single story

single story L shaped

it's on a

on an acre so outside if we can as well

looking at Wi-Fi 7 if possible

but yeah just there's too many things on the market

I've got no idea

budget in mind?

doesn't really matter just as long as it does the job

yeah well mate it's annoying

as annoying as it is

you get what you pay for that's the first thing to know

so it's funny I had someone just yesterday

so I've got this Google mesh and I've had it for a few years

and it doesn't do this and I'm like

well I mean you know it's a different system

and it doesn't do this because of you know

what's built into it basically so sometimes

it is exactly that

so I'm mindful of the products under $300

for example

you know they're never going to

outlast the

dreams and ideals of your children

so you know I look at the products

in the 600 plus range

and I go okay so take for example

two side by side Amazon Eero

and Netgear Orbi

Wi-Fi 7 both of them

three packs both of them

649

that's a starting point

without any question in my mind I wouldn't go less than that

if you can afford that that's a great starting point

firstly because it's a three pack system

so router

two satellites that's going to work beautifully

in an L shaped home

and that's also going to cover that backyard area

just because of the very nature of the shape of the home

they're both Wi-Fi 7

that's also great

the limitation if I was to

find a limitation for you in for example

the Orbi 370 series in that price range

is that it's dual band

and so when we say dual band

you have this system where

the

your home network has

two Wi-Fi networks

the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz

different devices connect to different ones

and they work on different speeds all good

but those routers

so the Orbi or the Amazon Eero

all the TP links or whatever you buy

they also need to communicate with each other

and with the dual band system

they're using the same

Wi-Fi bands to communicate with each other

as you are to get on the internet

which is why a tri band system

starts to look really attractive

but it's a big jump up

for the Amazon Eero it's $11.99

so you're talking a

$500 price jump

to get a tri band system

that's still Wi-Fi 7

but that's a like for like

$649 Amazon Eero

$1199 Amazon Eero

Netgear do have

a system but it's

even more expensive it's $14.99

so there's a lot of benefits

to the Netgear system I would argue

especially with kids there's parental controls

there's home security as in

your device security built in

so you can't be attacked from the outside

on your network

it blocks other devices joining your network

there's some seriously good things about the Netgear system

but at $14.99

it might push you too far so you might end up going

Amazon's pretty good

at $11.99

Wi-Fi 7 tri band

pretty darn good deal

and if you wonder in the future

you've always got the expansion

Amazon I got an outdoor thing you can plug in

but I think you'll get the outdoor coverage you want

from any of these systems

just based on the design of your home

I have been

sort of looking at the ubiquities

dream 3 out of 7

I've had a little bit of experience

mucking around with them but

yeah it is

but it comes a bit of a hobby once you start to

drive into that stuff

it's an ecosystem of its own

but the one great thing about ubiquity is the community

now look

a lot of people own Netgears

and own Amazon heroes and own Google Wi-Fi

but are they on Reddit

helping each other? Not as much

so the ubiquity community

like if you come up with

ideas or things you want to do with your network

or things you want to block or enable

the community is remarkable

for ubiquity so

if you're a bit of a dabbler

then you may love that

in that sense but just know

it's a gateway drug to

expanding and growing and doing

a lot of different things but

I've never heard a bad word said about ubiquity

no worries buddy good luck

and enjoy the speeds of

Wi-Fi 7 mate

thank you have a good one

no worries at all

yeah I mean

I don't mention ubiquity because

they're rarely available in major retail stores

they call them niche

and they are they're broadly niche

they were born out of a more

of a small business corporate style network

and they are very tinkery

while they do work out of the box

a lot of the core features and things are

best enabled through a bit of tinkering

so

that's probably one of the reasons

they don't really crack major retail

like JB's but you know

JB's if you look now that's pretty much dominated

by Amazon, Netgear and TP-Link

there's others there but

that's essentially the market

I think that's also

a sign of what

JB's seen

you gotta remember a retail store like JB

they don't just go

oh you got a product do you want to sell it cool yeah

okay put it on the shelf they first of all

they do deals because you gotta

buy the shelf space essentially

but more importantly

they monitor everything

so if they get

a 5% return on

Amazon Hero

a 3% return on Netgear

and when I say return I mean people bringing them back

because they break, failed or didn't work

or were too hard to work out

and they get a you know

12% return on another brand

they're gonna go when they're looking at their shelf space

and they go oh you know what

it's just more trouble than it's worth

to bring out the other brand so I'm fascinated

actually now as I just

look at the JB website to think

I think they've narrowed their range

to a point where they believe they have

found the most trusted

brands in this market and it appears

to be a race of three

TP-Link

Netgear

and Amazon

so

all power to those three brands

there's an ASUS there as well

I can see but you know if I

scroll I don't see a lot other than those

anyway

there may be more but just

at a quick glance it doesn't appear that way so

there's a lot of options there and I've said it for many years

but knowing the difference between

one and another so which is why I point out the difference

between the 649 and the 1199

it's going to be

less congestion

it's going to be when those kids do grow up

and they're using the internet more

everyone's going to get a bit of a path

on the freeway and that's what you want

Great to have you company and if you want to be

part of this show I would love to hear from you

whether you've just bought something new

or you're looking to buy something new

it doesn't matter, get in touch

and we'll get you on the show and we'll have a chat

try and help you out or you can just brag about something you bought

I'm cool with that

so before we get back to your calls

the federal budget last week

lots of memes going around about it

but the thing that hasn't gotten any attention really

and I thought it would to be honest

because people freak out

when you talk about digital ID

was 650 odd million dollars

allocated to digital ID through

Services Australia and other things

in broad simple terms

my own summary reading of it is essentially

their refunding and

additionally funding the systems

and back ends that allow for the digital ID

and trying to expand it

in some way to roll it out

in a better way and

make a system that they describe

as essentially tell us once

so you shouldn't have to tell the government

one piece of information about you more than once

because they should all know about it

it's the government and that is

essentially what a digital ID is

plus there's a very exciting trial that will

demonstrate a great use

of digital ID

now one company that's very close to this

is Australian Payments Plus

and we spoke to them

earlier in the year or late last year

about the social media ban

and the age verification system

that was being rolled out using

their platform called Connect ID

and I'm pleased to say Andrew Black

the managing director of digital trust

at Australian Payments Plus joins me again

although I get a Andrew, how are you doing?

Yeah, well Shaffer, how are you?

Mate, really good, before we talk

digital ID, Connect ID

we talked about it I think

when it first rolled out it was

Snapchat was where I discovered it but you've now

got that connection happening on a few different platforms

how's that going?

That's right, so quite a few places

in social media, so Snapchat

and Reddit, two

headline names as well as a few others

but also across a range of other places

Telstra, Deloitte

from Australia, and a range

of customers from sort of small

medium across lots of industries

And to rewind for people that might

have missed that conversation essentially

what your platform allows me to do

when our website or a service

asks me to verify

my age or other

information, I'm simply

connecting my bank account

through your system but without

handing over any information

or giving any authority

or handing over any banking information

to that platform or service

you're simply verifying me

in a simple and easy

way.

That's right, so what we sort of really set out to do

is how do you help verify

someone is who they are

or something about them, like the rage

for social media, with an organization

that they already know and trust and who already

knows and trusts them, like the bank

so we work with the

four major banks so far

and extending that further out

to me, instead of having to take photographs

of passports or documents

or upload or scan something in

you can just get your bank

to verify, yes it is Trevor

and for social media it is over 16

and that's all they're making things

really easy for people as well

as reducing the risk, reducing the amount

of data you have to share, information

you have to share and keeping things

safe and straightforward.

What is your take

as a company on the announcement

in the federal budget? Is it good?

Is it enough? Should there be more done?

I think it's really encouraging

to be honest, so yeah,

654 million I think over the next four years

and I think what that means

is sort of setting out a few things.

The government is committed to expanding

and continuing the digital identity

programs.

Primarily what that sort of looks like is

the government making it really easy

for people to interact with government

so using my ID, using services

in Australia and building on the

foundations of that.

We already do that for the private sector with ConnectID

so government sort of has that system up

and running for the federal government.

ConnectID has been doing that with the private sector

what this budget continues

to show is actually the next stage is how we bring

those two things together and how do we allow

people to use

either your bank identity in the government services

or use your government

identity with private services.

That's a critical thing right?

What I was most worried about

in the world of digital

IDs is having to have

too many of them.

Is the vision for the future

medium to long term

that an individual like me

just picks a lane

and essentially picks an app?

I think about my mum, she's in her 70s

and I have set her up with my ID app

because I know she needs to log on now

and then to Centrelink or whatever it might be.

I don't see me setting

up another ID app for her right?

But

as someone tech savvy broadly

I mean I could obviously use a bunch of apps

but should we as individuals just get to choose

which app we use and it gets used everywhere

is that the goal? So if I choose to be

a ConnectID user

then whether I'm signing up at Telstra

or for a

rental home or signing into my

gov should I be able to use the one app?

That word choice is the crucial one

right? So what the government's been really

clear on is that nobody's going to be

mandated to use a digital ID, nobody's

going to be forced to use my gov

and the choice and sort of trust and transparency

are really important. What ConnectID

will allow you to do is you can

choose who you want at that point of

interaction right? So with Telstra

if you're taking out a new plan today

you can choose between the four major banks

so there's no new digital ID app to download

only to set up, you can just use your

banking app but we'll also work with the

federal government to connect in so that you

could also use my ID if you wanted to

and some people will want to, some want to use

a private sector provider and use their bank

somebody will want to use the

government and actually for some people

it's kind of situation dependent right?

Like if you feel like maybe you're taking out

insurance that might feel more of a

financial services sort of transaction

you might want to use a bank if you're

doing something and your children

sort of education enrollment that might

feel like more of a government transaction

a lot of our research says that people

want to have choice at that point

in time and what feels most comfortable

to them. The key thing for us is that

by using our network

and Australian Payments Plus has sort of been running

the payments networks in the country for

40 years, our network means

that for a business you plug in once

and you get access to all

of these sources and for a user we have

sort of that no wrong door. It's like when you tap

your card at a terminal you don't know how

the payment is sort of wired in the

back rooms right? It just works.

I just want to know the time I don't

want to know how the watch is made as they say

do you know what I mean? Exactly.

And your system is essentially built

on the trust that we as individuals have

with our bank.

So what I guess we need

to get to understand is

I'm assuming that when I sign up

for a Telstra plan or whatever it is and I want to talk to you about that in a minute

but when I'm

going to take the path of Connect ID

it's actually one

logo.

Think check out

on a website. You've normally got the option of

do I want to use Google Pay, Apple Pay

or PayPal. There's three buttons.

Are you saying to me

that in the future I'll be able to sign

up to things and now but more so

in the future and there'll be a Connect ID

button that then launches and sends me

to my bank or will it just show

all four bank logos

because clearly if you

onboard more banks you won't be able to show all the logos.

So is it Connect ID that becomes the face

of this for the banks?

That's right and that's how it works today.

So you'll see

sign up with Connect ID or check out

with Connect ID button

on the Telstra website today.

You'll click on that and then it will

drop down a list of all the available

providers. So the four banks today

more in the future but also my ID

in the future as well.

So it will just drop down that list afterwards

for you then you choose your provider

you log into your bank listing where you were today

where they'll spend password or

biometrics sort of flogging

you can sense because again really important

that the individual's aware of what they're

sharing and importantly what they don't have to share

and then you're taken back

to Telstra to finish checking out

and it's 20 seconds for me to explain it

but 5 seconds to click

and do it. The rental

application pilot the government

announced is also very

deep in the budget documents but I thought it was

an excellent initiative because

there'd be plenty of people listening who are

either in the process of looking for

a rental property or have recently

been already at any point been

through that process. Is it

the case that essentially

rather than and this is how I've

described it so tell me if I'm wrong but

you know wherever you need to prove your identity

you got to bring along a passport

or driver's license and a Medicare card

you're 100 points of ID. I think the average

Aussie knows what 100 points of ID

means and they probably

if they get told they need to bring it they probably quickly

check hang on does a bank card

a driver's license and a bill

add up to 100 or whatever it might be.

Is it the case that

instead of having to show 100 points

of ID to a real estate agent

who's going to photocopy my driver's license

my energy bill and my Medicare

card and keep it in a

folder somewhere in their office or

worse scanned and in the cloud

somewhere that I don't know how secure it is

and instead of that I use

a digital ID of some sort

which verifies me and that's all they need

I'm impressed you made it that far into the budget

I won't lie I used AI

I used AI

I was going to say I question your night time reading

if that's what you made it to

but no you're exactly right so

today the process

is pretty manual, pretty cumbersome

and the other challenge is rental

so it's not just the time you actually successfully

get a rental application

to do it, it's every time you apply

and people are typically

in this market of applying sort of 5 to 15

times before often getting

a successful application approved

so every single time there you're over

sharing that amount of data

what the trial proved with the Department of

Finance as the government

was that digital ID is a perfect way

to remove some of that friction

you can verify that I am

over 100, over 18

in some scenarios where you need to prove affordability

you can say

earn enough to afford this rent

without having to share 7 years worth of bank statements

to be able to do that

and it gives the real estate agent

all they need and also reduces the amount of things

they have to store, they don't want to be storing

all this document, the next challenge

which is where the

the budget that comes in, the next steps of that

is aligning legislation

because while this sounds boring

actually today you can't accept a digital identity

in some states

and I was going to ask why does the government need to be involved

in this because it sounds like the sort of thing

if I'm a real estate agent I'm trying to digitise everything

I'm like what do we do to avoid this

but then if you realise that actually

there's requirements

at law which say that

you need to do and store

and cite certain things

then that needs to change first

before an industry can change

that's right and it's state by state

with real estate and rentals are some you can

but some you can't

but it's a good example of where

the technology is there ready

people are adopting it and using it

actually we just need to sort of align the legislation

but that was the point of the trial

to show government and show the industry

that there's better ways to do this

we did that with the telco sector

sort of 12 months ago

again you had to capture a document

12 months ago to

verify something about you but we demonstrated that

with ACMA

the regulator there, the digital identity

produces fraud, makes things safer

and there's no

kind of decreased security

and that legislation has been changed as a result

so there's lots of wins there just following up

I'm blown away because

I didn't even know that

like in my mind the Optus hack

and other hacks pointed to a problem

that existed with our identities that

legislatively

Optus for example

needed to

copy

and retain your driver's license number

expiry date and things like that

as a proof of your identity etc etc

are you telling me the legislation

has already changed that they are not required

to retain identity

information that was used

to prove who the individual is

and they now need to just, they are able to

don't need to but they're able to

simply use a digital ID

to verify an individual

so it has subsequently changed

yes, in the last 12 months

so that's the power

of what we've demonstrated with Kinectity

along with the amazing help of Telstra

is showing that

you can make things easier for people

you can make things easier for the business

and you don't compromise security and actually

you increase the detection

of fraud and help protect

both people and business

all with one wave of the

legislative pen

did you say that Telstra had implemented it only

on one aspect like prepaid or postpaid

I can't remember what you said

so currently today on

prepaid some activation

but that's expanding over the next couple of months

so if you stay tuned

you'll see it pop up in a few more places

in Telstra in the next month or so

I mean that's a huge step forward

and so hang on let's just rewind

here and be very clear so if I

either buy on online or get it a

service station grab a Telstra SIM card

and then I go to activate it

it always asks me who I am and let's be clear

I've done this so many times because

I have tested many telcos over the years

so I've actually I think I've been blocked

from because you don't know they have

you're only allowed to have so many services

in your name and so I need to be

unblocked from some of the telcos but

and there's a reason for that right

because the government realized that

you know the underworld

excuse me was buying

bunch of SIM cards and acting

illicitly so they made a

change you had to approve who you were

and you could be limited only by a certain number

of mobile plans etc etc

so I can now go and get a SIM

and when I go to sign in it

it asks me my name and my address

but then it uses connect ID

to verify who I am and basically I'm not

handing over much at all to Telstra

exactly

exactly that we've been doing that with Telstra

for a year we've launched that with more

telecom as well and there's a few more

telcos sort of coming in the coming weeks

and months because as you say

it's absolutely right that

you need to identify who the individual is right

some of those are used for nefarious

purposes but what we've shown is

that doesn't need to be a photocopy

it doesn't need to be uploading a document

you can do that really cleanly and simply

with a digital ID

and still protect

Telstra, protect user user

and make everything easier for everyone

and so do you now have a team that's literally

looking at legislation and going right

where's what other industries do we need

because again and you know

applying I think of the hacks that have occurred

right so latitude was another one

and you think about the amount of places

where you can now do finance at the counter

whether it's a big retail store

or otherwise and those things obviously

that's good that they require information

but it's about reducing

what I hand over that gets retained

so I'm all for

and I think we're all for them proving

who we are but it's about what gets retained

and we just need to remind ourselves

Medibank, latitude,

Optus, those

breaches resulted in millions of people's

data being exposed

and so if we fast forward 20 years

and we go okay well

you know we don't want to put it on Telstra

but you know they've been using

this system for 20 years

in their prepaid system how many

people were affected by some sort of

security incident

oh 10 million customers

but no information was obtained

because we don't retain any information

full stop done we're in a good

space that's the purpose of this

exactly right that's

the beauty you then don't have

you know 10 million people

who have to get a new driving license

because a driving license number has been

part of that breach right there's nothing

there or captured so we've got a range

of different industries where that's

insurance super or you

may hear the expression

Trange 2 thrown around which is

a very very boring regulatory change

but a really important one where

anti-money laundering laws are

extending out to more sectors so again

businesses need to verify something

about you for money laundering

which again absolutely

the right thing to do with those tractor regulator

but it's extending out from

currently today you know banks

financial service providers to a lot of

small businesses accountants bookkeepers

you know rental as well

these are new compliance burdens

for those sectors that don't

currently have to verify today

and actually the benefit now

with digital ID is that they can get that

right from day one right they don't need to

go through this back catalog of urging

old things that had to capture

you know when that comes into force in July

this year they can use digital ID

from day one and they don't need that huge

big cybersecurity team that many of the

multinationals have when there are

you know one to ten person business

they can capture

that with their regulatory requirements

and keeps things safe from day one

what do you say to

or have you even met with

Malcolm Roberts for example

who's very very anti-digital

ID

um

is it privacy

Malcolm Roberts

yes Senator Malcolm Roberts who spends

I interviewed him on this show

about digital ID

some years ago and

look he just honestly is a lunatic

he went on a rant and rave about

government digital currencies and things

but if we if we put

in a bucket a bunch of people

who are scared of digital ID

what what do we say to them

or is it no we do not need to

worry about it yet because they're not

required to use it and we just say don't worry about it

just keep doing what you're doing

well I had the pleasure of Malcolm Roberts

um asking me some of those questions

at a senate inquiry on digital ID

a couple of years ago so I can I can share

that um

you know I think I think the benefit that we

we have at you with the system is that

it sort of avoids that digital identity

big brother show your card debate

it is voluntary it is

opt-in the benefit of something like

Kinect ID is it does give you a choice if you don't want to use the government

you don't have to use the government

that's really the sort of sweet spot of what

the design implementation is

that other countries have gone down the

route of you will use the government identity

everywhere you go

Australia is not doing that it is very much kept

this as a um there will always be

an alternative route there will always

be a non-digital option and there will always be

a non-government option so

I think that

um some of those questions I understand

I understand the concerns of but

they're not found in Australia

that's um the benefit of what we've sort of

co-developed with the federal government

and the great thing is in the favour

of digital ID there's been

enough publicity around

data loss and handing over of

information that I think most people

are aware and broadly

scared so while they're not

voting with their feet to change telcos

because their telco got hacked they're

they're wary from the next time they hand over their

information are you

are you in the prime poll position

in the private sector with this

or is it a super competitive space

well I think

what we've seen is that there's a few

different factors at play so

what we have sort of built is the

the leading private sector

um I guess network and infrastructure

in the same way we're on the payments

infrastructure for fbp you know pay

to pay id those sort of love brands

so we're certainly you know helping

helping steer that forward with the country

actually competition is really good right

and that's what we have four banks competing

you know other government competing

because competition means choice

and for users you get more choice

for us it's about enabling that

and us playing that role of a sort of

acceptance network for businesses so

that no matter if there is competition

and choice it doesn't increase

their costs it makes things easy and simple

for businesses.

It's an awesome space a fascinating

space and I do think this didn't get anywhere near

the attention it deserved but that's for other reasons

of policy in the budget I think

any other any other day it could have been

a huge huge story but you know it's probably

a good thing in some ways that it just

bubbles away and grows

and then we get to a point where these

rental um stories I think

will start to come out how far away

is that rental trial do you think

So we concluded the trial uh I think

in I think in April

I think we completed it a couple months ago

and government will be presenting its findings in the next

sort of month or so we expect

um and from there

we expect things to start rolling out

so in the next couple months so I'm hoping by the end

of the year anyone applying for a rental

application um has the option

to not share a passport or a driving license.

Amazing and a real estate agent

there'll just be a simple system for them

I mean it's not an overhead for them to implement

Exactly

really easy really straightforward it's a

it's a lovely mixture of

um a system that we have

already a range of companies on board

that are small startups you know 12

person businesses all the way up to

as health just it really does sort of keep them for all

Andrew great to chat with you mate

and uh you keep us in the loop as that

roll out especially across telco continues

because that's the

that's a huge touch point for people

handing over their identity and

as we know losing it as well um

you're doing great work and I look forward to

clicking that connect ID button at some

point in the future as it becomes available in more

more places. Thanks

always good to chat

this is the EFT

and podcast

great

to have your company uh

Damien's along and they made how you're doing

good mate yourself yeah really good what can I do for you

it's been a while since we spoke

um I know went away

from buddy telco I went to buddy telco

and go away from optos which shocked you

did you brush them when they got sold to tangerine

not yet

I'm starting to notice a few issues with

I think with a couple of different things here and

there so I may be moving what sort of issues

because I've had we've had a few calls

that brand only mention it and I

like I was to be honest I was bum bite

but you know I'm like you created this great

second tier telco and then you sold it off it's very

strange business model but

that's I think that's that's wall street

talking is what I say it's like if it was

normal business I don't think it would have mattered but because they're

on the stock market and they needed to show

higher average revenues per user

I think they went you know what let's just sell it off

yeah so I think

there's been a few dropouts here and there

more so

and my last bill out of the blue

went from even though it says it's the same pricing

technically they changed it and

added a credit card fee to it

of one percent well they've got to

hang on they've got to get rid of that soon because that's

being ruled out isn't it I'm very happy

about that and all these businesses saying

oh we have to charge more no just add it

into your price I want

it's a bit like bags I actually go to warbs and

coals and I refuse to pay for bags I actually

grab a bag and I say well you didn't

include in your price of your food I saw someone

on tiktok do that the other day and I'm like you know what

I don't think they would argue with you

like it's a also

don't get me down a rabbit hole here but

I reckon that's one of the greatest

scams probably the wrong word to

use because think about it for

decades Woolies and coals were

spending let's just call it

5000000 a year on plastic

bags and then

they went okay we've got to get rid of those

so let's get

paper bags let's say they cost

6000000 a year and now they're making

20 million a year on paper they're definitely

making money because I've had

paper bags mate and I made

200 of them and they were pretty cheap

if I got 200 million of them

mate I'm pretty sure they'd be less than 30

cents or whatever the hell they're charging

it's a cheap. Do you know the only time I paper

paper bag and here's another tip when you

need to get cash out and go to warbs and they say

you need to buy something for now on

paper bag. Just grab a 25 cent paper bag

you've technically paid for something

I love it

I've got every tip and the trick

If I had time with a war CEO

if they said you could interview him

you've got to see the questions first I'd say

I'll interview him I'll ask whatever you want

as long as he or she answers me

how much do you spend on paper bags every year

and how much do you make on paper bags every year

that's all I want to know

so anyway but that wasn't

the reason I was calling Trev

well I mean let's just

rant what's wrong with that

why do they ask me if I want to round up

my purchase to donate to some

charity when they're the ones making millions

why don't you make the donation on my behalf

same with McDonald's

do you want to round up 10 cents

how about you just make a donation to

Ronald McDonald house because I'm spending money

with you exactly anyway mate

what did you ring for

mate oh I love

sharing my tips and tricks don't worry

but mate I'm on an old rant

I'm still with Optimism Mobile phone remember

because remember before the whole meltdown

happened years ago I was on a plan that said

if you paid $5 once

you get your data for free

well and when I complained

at the time they gave me $20 off a month

for three years to make me go away

essentially and I accepted

that time so but

in come October so I've started looking

because my sons

I've moved that little extra

data thing I've put in my son's iPad now

so when we travel around and everything

he's got data I don't have to

share don't have to connect

share and everything like that

so I still want to keep a separate data

plan for him but I'm willing to move

away from Optus but it seems like

every data plan is like

30 bucks a month so I know I'm coming

off this deal and gonna lose $20 a month

but it doesn't seem like

there's anything that's cheap out there that

is a data plan only

that can get me

leaving Optus if you know what I mean for the $5

a month I pay and I'll say

yes I'm gonna come off the $20

I'm gonna ring him again and ask for a discount don't get me wrong

but you know what I mean

there just doesn't seem to be

anything out there that's a yearly plan

or you know just cheap

you know to keep him going each month

and you've looked at a May Sim

and Kogan and Boost

I did yeah but there wasn't it was still

up there for

for data only

there wasn't what's

your number what do you want to pay

make 10 bucks a month that's it

that's all a kid needs

it's not like

so how much data

how much data should that include

oh mate

from what

he uses it'd be 10 gig

max a year a month

a month because it does

he does because what happens is

he'll leave the iPad going and all of a sudden

YouTube when we're out and about

or just chew through data all of a sudden because he

and so is the issue that you're looking for a data

only plan when so for example

Kogan has $149 a year

for 140 gigabytes

see that's

so $149 a year

that's just over $10 come on mate

yeah

like I said if I can leave Optus because at the moment

I'm paying Optus

hang on when I come

it keeps changing because I keep ringing my asking

for different discounts so right now I think I'm

paying

well 52 including that

and I come off that and it'll be

what's that 72

yeah

so I could move the thing is we also

my wife moved to boost she moved from Optus

to boost from the whole thing happened so we're on

different telcos

so I don't really want to be going

to Telstra with boost even I know

it's going to be the best option because of the

if they go down then you know I mean you don't have any

100% I mean

for me it's really

there's three telcos to choose from and that's boost

Amasim and Kogan because there's three

networks and three companies

that will offer you a 365 day

plan so Amasim

Optus network so you know the network you're happy

with the network $175

for 220 gigabytes

that's yeah but I use

I use no honey

mate you know how much sport I watch

I've just been to Magic Ground

all weekend so it's

so how my picky number

like 320 gigabytes is 200 bucks

a year yeah that probably work

and you know the other I look at it again

because I was talking to my wife about this because her

plan ended early because she used

all the data up and like it doesn't so

let's say you go on the Amasim

$199 for a year

for 320 gigabytes

well you're paying 72

so let's call it

let's call it 50

well let's call it 60 because the 12

then goes to your son's Kogan mobile plan right

so $60 a month

you've paid 200 it's like what is that

4 months worth of

even if the

Amasim plan runs out so you've used

320 gig in 10 months

so fine it's $199

every 10 months

yeah now be clear

they'll say to you that it's

it's actually more than that

it's $320 a year ongoing

but mate

you can't tell me that there's not

a phone call or something to be made to say listen

you want me to renew here or not

because you're offering this number

to everyone else why aren't you offering it to me

and also keep an eye on for example

Kogan people say to me often they often

have deals and you can

buy the top up and not

activate it for a few months when you

need it so little tricks

like that are useful

but mate

even at $320 a year

it's still

cheaper than what you're paying now

yeah okay I'll look at that

you're just going to need to let go of that long

standing customer service record at Optus

that says just give him what he wants

get him off the phone

because that's definitely in your records

well I've been on the yes it would be

because I've been with them for

well hang on I turned 41

the other day so what is that

17, 24 years

is that right if I do maths

and what mate stop

asking me this but they don't

they're not giving you loyalty the only reason they're giving you those deals

is because they're required

to grandfather plans

and because they're sick of your reign

which is great it's great that they're

doing that but they're not doing it for loyalty

true

so unless a telco

in your case Optus is willing to go

listen Damien you've been with us for such a long time

let's give you

a plan for this much

and a plan for your son

for this much and let's all

call it a day and you're on 12 months let's go

like unless they're willing to do that for you

why bother

and look the thing is

I'm encouraging you here to switch to amazing which they own

so they don't care

they're getting your money anyway

true

Trev you've answered

the question for me so I'm definitely going

I'm going to wait till October

until of course I'm going to call them

in September

but I must admit

it is easier just having an all in one bill

yeah but okay

let me counter that with saying mate

if you're paying once a year that's your wife

your son and you that's three

times you've got to make a decision about a payment

that's true

so it's not really a billing issue do you know what I mean

like who's looking at bills anymore

so if you go to annual

then you're in a good space

because it's three times a year

how old is your son

three

so it's a long way off but when you

when they start to have a conversation around

okay you need to

whine back a usage

I let my sons run out

at one point because I was like you know what

he needs to come to me

I get the text message I'm not topping it up

he needs to come to me and say my data's running

and I say okay let's sit down and go

why what the hell are you doing

why are you not on wife by when you're at home

why are you not doing this why are you not doing that

and by the way it costs this much money

so it's and look

my oldest is you know 19 turning 20

this year but like yesterday the car

that he drives all the time needed new tyres

and I said mate can you I can't

I don't have time I booked it in

can you take it up and use my car

and then he said to me

I asked him to ask them some questions

about why they were wearing in a certain way and he found out

and I said to him I said mate

all those things so the pressure all the advice

that's on you because you drive that car

and he goes he wrote back now that I know

how much they cost a hundred percent

because he saw the bill

and he didn't physically pay it

but he had no idea how much tyres were

you learn that once

like you don't learn that as a 14 year old

you learn that as a 20 year old the first time you need to get

tyres you're like holy crap

so a kid only learns

when they're 10 or 11 when they start

getting a mobile that hang on a minute

I can't just endlessly scroll

unless I'm on wi-fi or whatever

it might be so that

education around the bill coming up

and the text message coming

through about their plan is important my wife got it

why am I having to renew my data

every month babe because you're using it too much

and then I looked you're not on wi-fi

when you're at home what are we doing here

okay and that changed everything

it completely changed now she's

lasting way way longer on a mobile

plan so I like the

the annuals because they make you think

about your usage I think more than

even a monthly plan does

yeah and hey Trev one last thing for you go

your facebook group

I feel that the algorithms have changed

on facebook with a lot of things

in the last 34 months

what's it

so instead of

not just you but in general

so you go and post something on your facebook

and it may used to get

30 40 likes okay yeah

now you get three or four and every

second page you get if you scroll every

second thing is something you don't follow

yep or an ad

okay so when you post when people

were posting questions back in the day on

the f-team page it used to come up as a

notification and you'd see it I don't see

those anymore and I feel like

people aren't and people ask questions

unless you physically go into the

man cave there's a lot less

likes or

I've just noticed

that probably about 34 months ago

I agree and mate so the example

I'll give you and I when I posted about the tv

tool I actually tagged because it's a weird

thing to do but I don't use it often but you can

tag everyone so they do get a notification

and frankly

with respect to the audience frankly

I was disappointed in the amount of engagement I got on

that because I thought it was the coolest thing in

days but now I did get a lot of likes so it

was good but you're right you don't

you don't see the content as much

no and I don't know how you fix

that because it's Facebook driving the algorithm

mate I barely look at Facebook these

days because when I log on like

I've just opened up the page you have phone

alien footage and there's a picture of Elon and an

alien what the hell no go

away and then it's like I said even

even on personal stuff

stuff I would post let's say

a photo of my son and three years ago

it would get 60 70 likes

from different people and then of late

it's getting like I said maybe 20

if that and I'm it's not that

people and it's the same people like and

I'm not saying it's because it's my

I'm just saying in general I've noticed

more ads of more follow this page

and all this that you're going I want to see

my friends content not crap

I don't follow and I think

that's the problem with social media today

is it's all algorithmic it's like mate

I said to someone the other day

the follower

counts are now almost

irrelevant because it's very hard

to get new followers when you're on

well tiktok and Instagram are good examples

get a lot of views but a lot

people don't bother following anymore because they know

that if you just watch

something you'll you'll get more of

that so you don't need to follow

people anymore and I think what facebook

trying to do is push you content they think you'll engage

with so you'll stay on the platform longer

what I'm noticing weirdly

is they're getting more video views

so real

they call them reels as well on facebook

but reels on facebook

are doing very very well for me

in the same way they are on instagram

now not not crazy numbers

but good numbers to the

point where I now look at that and go oh jeez

okay I've forgotten about facebook and

you gosh holy crap my iPhone

foldable video got 40,000 views

on facebook and I

and like this I didn't push that in any

way so I mean it's just changed

facebook has just completely

changed and it's sad because the group

is and more

importantly was a great source of

engagement I don't know how to replicate that anywhere

else

no I don't know either like

I follow a few pages I'm a part of a group chat

but it costs five dollars a month

on Instagram with

a regular lead guy who does a lot of

content that's great but I'm

that's probably that's how it does it but it's more

of a group chat rather than a

well you can now I can now post stuff

in Instagram channels so my travel

channel and people can reply

but they can't create their own content

and the only real alternative

is Reddit and I think

Reddit is too nerdy so

the thing about the man cave is it's a bunch

of people who aren't ultimate nerds

but they're but they're their families

nerd

so you can ask a question and not

see what happens on Reddit is you ask a question

and people go you're an idiot and I hold

whoa whoa whoa whereas if you ask a question in the man cave

someone will say oh you can

do this and that and if someone says you're an idiot

someone else will say dude what are you talking about

you know so that is why I love it

that way so I I don't know

the answer to your question but I'm

I'll contemplate it put it that way

no but I thought you should know it seems like

you're not getting the engagements not there for when

people ask questions for help as much

anymore I've definitely noticed that

in general and just in general

stuff so good observation mate

thank you so much good luck with the telcos

mate thank you again and always

always good to chat to you cheers mate always great to hear from you

thanks mate mate I'll let Optus know you're

going to call

see you buddy

see ya

Damien's been on the show a lot of times

and we'll drive a hard bargain

whether it's I think Optus

and Foxtel would be his two big

Nemesis

but great feedback on the man cave

I agree 100% and I wish it was

different because

it's a great community

but I don't know how you

I don't know how you fix it in simple terms

maybe we'll find a way

if you've got feedback or advice

let me know

send me text 0447657657

thank you for listening

great heavy company

and good feedback there from Damien on the man cave

so I would love your advice or thoughts on that

I do love that community and I want it to thrive

but a difficult

place to thrive is Facebook

when it's algorithmically driven

so

yeah let me know what you think

I might jump in there the Sarbo if I remember

and have a conversation about Reddit

maybe Reddit is a place

maybe it's a better option

maybe

there's a way

we could

I don't know it's a tough one

but let's play around and have a think

and see what we can come up with

as a solution to continuing that

community driven

helping each other

vibe that was created with

the man cave over many years and thousands of people

so I'd like to continue that

I'd like to find a way so

whatever we can do any advice you've got

if you're running a Facebook group

and you've found ways around it or to push it

let me know

all hands on deck is welcome here

so let me know what you think

you can do that through the app

you can do that on the phone whatever it is

and I will talk to you next week

I think we've got some plans for next week

otherwise we'll talk to you soon

thanks folks see you soon

bye

you

Digital ID - awesome or scary - the future though!

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