How to Protect National Digital Identity Records

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has released a new report concerning the country’s national records.

The report found that a cyberattack targeting national identity assets has the potential to cause major disruption and collective psychological damage. Such an attack would almost certainly lead to the further erosion of public trust in Australia’s democratic institutions and its reputation internationally. The solution requires a systemic effort by state and federal governments to identify and value national identity data, create a closer alignment between the professional fields of digital preservation and information security, and place a stronger focus on information governance.

To ensure that critical government-held national identity assets are protected and that memory institutions charged with their care are adequately funded to do so, it lists several suggestions to protect digital identity assets.

1. Government departments should collect metadata about threats and analyze them in near real-time (who accessed a server and from what location). 

2. Store copies of historical records offline and spread across other instutitions, such as schools and universities, as a central repository for digital identity assets is a single point of failure.

3. Enlist the private sector's help. Historical societies and NGOs may need to store hard and soft copies.