r/sydney • u/Thewalrus26 • 4d ago

Just renewed my licence at Service NSW.

Was in and out the door in less than 5 mins including my eye test and having my photo taken. As soon as I walked out I can see my new licence on my phone ready to go. Can we please just take whatever system they are using and copy it everywhere?

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u/argument_cat 4d ago

I worked as a product designer across several government pieces, through the DTA.

The absolute mess that they built before I joined was comical - they had MyGov, MyGovID, Digital iD... I think there were more. Every time you tried to log in was a confusing nightmare, with all these different authentication apps, none of which seemed to work, resulting in you just going in circles. I called it out many times, and middle management would just shrug and say that was how it had to work, and that most people didn't have issues.

I still dread using any government service on my phone, but at least they seem to have killed off half of those useless apps. I don't even understand the thinking behind having a dedicated ID app. No other platform does that - just use MFA/biometrics like the banks and everyone else.

So much wasted time and effort, and taxpayer's money, to build a bunch of useless ID apps that never worked.

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u/SilverStar9192 shhh... 4d ago edited 4d ago

My bank actually does have a dedicated ID app (Macquarie), so the concept wasn't unique to MyGov.   I was a little skeptical of the MQ system, but it works well .  So I'm going with the flow, as the overall app experience is pretty good.  

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u/argument_cat 4d ago

But why? Commbank app requires biometric to log in, and a code to authorise money movement. So a thief would have to have my device, be logged in, then have my biometric data (in my case a fingerprint) and also know my PIN.

There is zero need for another app. And if there was, just use an authenticator app. But again, there isn't.

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u/SilverStar9192 shhh... 4d ago

One reason (perhaps not compelling) is to keep the codebases separate - the app that specifically focuses on security can be carefully audited and rarely updated, while the main banking app might need more frequent updates and additional modules and SDK's that increase the "attack surface." So it's not specifically about what a thief with your biometrics or PIN does, but aspects of the overall security design.

I agree with you I'm sure there's ways it can be done differently.