The security environment is rapidly changing and we must remain vigilant and adapt to risks to Australia’s national security, critical infrastructure and people.
The aviation and maritime transport infrastructure sectors remain a high risk, high impact target for criminal activity and terrorism including cyber attacks, threats from trusted insiders and malicious actors.
In response, the Australian government is reforming the aviation and maritime security identification cards (ASIC and MSIC) schemes, with the management of all card applications, background checks, and approvals to be centralised within the Department of Home Affairs.
This centralisation will form the Single Issuing Body in AusCheck.
This single government issuing body model under AusCheck will replace the current model where the ASIC and MSIC schemes are administered by a range of businesses and industry stakeholders.
This reform will see the issuing body operations within the Department of Home Affairs progressively scaled up to service the international requirement with an emphasis on servicing regional and rural Australia.
Most importantly, it will address issues such as systemic non-compliance with the ASIC and MSIC schemes under the Aviation Transport Security Regulations, known as the ATSR and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Regulations, known as the MTOFSR.
The branch responsible for leading this reform is AusCheck.
AusCheck coordinates criminal and national security background checking and identifies individuals who are not eligible for unsupervised access to secure areas of aviation, maritime, security sensitive biological agents or major national event facilities.
AusCheck is already an issuing body for government agencies whose staff require an ASIC or MSIC.
Our issuing body operations have been in existence since 2007 and our footprint spans across Australia through a network of highly trained individuals.
The establishment of the Single Issuing Body will not happen overnight. The timeline we will be working towards will be sequenced and delivered over three tranches.
That means, we will be working with you to ensure no disruption to services as you transition your issuing body responsibilities to AusCheck.
The Department will be in touch with you directly to co-design a solution that meets service level requirements and the security objectives of the reform.
Co-design elements include:
- Operating model business processes
- Service level requirements
- System requirements
- Change, communication & training needs
- Future state policy considerations.
In the future, AusCheck is looking to leverage new and exciting capabilities including:
- Biometric capture and anchoring of identity upon enrolment
- Applications lodged via a smart device support by prepopulating biographic information, for example reading a passport chip and optical character recognition of identity documents
- Extension of the background checking validity period.
We understand the challenges you will be facing as an issuing body as you prepare to transition your issuing body operations to AusCheck. We thank you for supporting this vital national security initiative and we look forward to working with you.
You may have a lot of questions and we would like to hear from you.
Please get in touch with us by emailing IBReformProject@homeaffairs.gov.au or go to our website www.auscheck.gov.au.
