DSPANZ provided a submission on the Department of Finance's consultation on verifiable credentials (VCs) policy on 3 July 2026.
In this submission, we supported the development of a Commonwealth VC Trust Framework that promotes interoperability, privacy, security, consumer protection and practical adoption. We noted that business software providers will be critical to whether VCs deliver real productivity benefits across the Australian economy.
While DSPANZ supported a guidance-based approach as an appropriate foundation, we recommended that the Trust Framework be sufficiently detailed to avoid fragmented implementations across Commonwealth agencies, state and territory governments, and private sector systems. Embedding these expectations from the outset will ultimately support the evolution of the Trust Framework and result in proportionate impacts for DSPs.
DSPs may play multiple roles in the VC ecosystem, including as verifiers, issuers, intermediaries, wallet integration providers, trust service participants and compliance infrastructure providers. We recommended that the Trust Framework should recognise the unique role of DSPs and require co-design before Commonwealth VC use cases are implemented in areas such as payroll, tax, superannuation, business authority, employee onboarding, payments, procurement and regulated workforce compliance.
Read more in the full
submission.