Then it was your phone. Now governments in Australia want you to use facial verification to access government services, take public transport and even for your private viewing. Last month the joint standing committee on intelligence and security told the government it needed to rethink its plans for a national facial verification database built off people's passport and driver's licence photos. It said there weren't strong enough safeguards for citizens' privacy and security built into the legislation. Despite the concerns, Australian governments and agencies have come up with some creative reasons to justify the use of facial recognition and sell it to the public.

Victoria has threatened to pull out of a state and federal government agreement for the home affairs department to run a facial recognition system because the bill expands Peter Dutton's powers and allows access to information by the private sector and local governments. In October the Council of Australia Governments agreed to give federal and state police real-time access to passport, visa, citizenship and driver's licence images for a wide range of criminal investigations. The identity matching services bill, introduced in February, enables the home affairs department to collect, use and disclose identification information including facial biometric matching. In a submission to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, the Victorian special minister of state, Gavin Jennings, warned that the bill provided "significant scope" for the home affairs minister to expand his powers beyond what was agreed. This includes the ability to collect new types of identification information and expand identity matching services.