The data will be put into the federal government’s National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution to make it easier for authorised government agencies to stamp out identity theft and those avoiding demerit points.

Only Victoria Police and VicRoads can use the data at this stage.

“It is very important for Victorian citizens to have confidence that their privacy is not going to be adversely impacted by these changes and at the moment, the Commonwealth legislation and the protocols are in place to guarantee that,” Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings told ABC radio on Tuesday.

Despite previous national breaches to data, Jennings says the community should have faith their private details are safe.

“In relation to where those failures have occurred, action has been taken to try to prevent them from occurring again,” he said.

“If our citizens don’t trust how information is gathered and used then we have no legitimate basis for moving forward.”

Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns said the practice was fine until it was breached.

“If it is hacked of course there are a few things that follow,” he said on 3AW Radio.

“Firstly it can be on-selling to other groups, criminal groups for example, your facial data recognition can be used to create fake documents, fake licences etc.”

The government says it allowed consideration of the data as the state’s system is “fairly inefficient” and flawed in relation to facial recognition and multiple IDs.

Jennings said sure-fire way of not being part of the system is not having a driver licence.

-AAP

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