Directors were indeed required to register via myGovID, with a deadline of November 30, 2022 for existing directors, and new directors required to apply before appointment [1][3].
According to ASIC's official guidance, director IDs "are not recorded on the companies register" and "you do not need to tell us your director ID when you apply to register a company or make changes to director details" [4].
The scheme was first announced on September 12, 2017 by the Coalition Government, with the concept initially recommended by the Productivity Commission in September 2015 [7].
The claim omits several critical facts about how the DIN scheme actually operates:
1. **Dual system, not replacement**: The DIN is a **separate regulatory identifier** maintained by the Australian Business Registry Services (ABRS) for government tracking purposes [4].
It does not replace or supersede the information directors continue to lodge with ASIC [5].
2. **Public information still public**: Directors' names, dates of appointment, and addresses remain publicly available through ASIC searches and company extracts [6].
The DIN itself is not disclosed to the public—it is a regulator-facing identifier [4].
3. **The purpose was different**: The DIN was designed to prevent "false or fraudulent director identities" and to track "director involvement in unlawful practices, such as illegal phoenix activity," not to reduce transparency [1][9].
4. **Compliance mechanism**: Rather than reducing transparency, the DIN creates an enforcement mechanism.
Directors must apply for one, keep it up-to-date, and face penalties for failing to do so or misrepresenting it (up to 1 year imprisonment for applying for multiple IDs or misrepresentation) [4].
The original source ZDNet is a reputable technology news outlet owned by Ziff Davis and provides factual reporting on government digital initiatives [1].
The second source (Game of Mates) is a book about political patronage in Australia but does not appear to specifically address the DIN scheme, suggesting it may be cited for general context about government processes rather than specific evidence about director registration.
**Did Labor propose or implement something similar?**
Search conducted: "Labor government director identification scheme accountability"
Finding: The Director ID concept was originally recommended by the **Productivity Commission in September 2015**, during the Coalition Government period [7].
* * * *
However, the Productivity Commission is an independent statutory agency making recommendations across government cycles.
While critics argue that the DIN requirement adds regulatory burden to directors, the government's stated justification was legitimate: preventing corporate fraud and illegal phoenix activity (where assets are transferred to a new company while debts are left behind) [1][9].
The DIN does **not replace** public information—it supplements it by creating a persistent identifier that tracks individuals across directorships and entities.
Importantly, the scheme includes safety provisions: directors can apply to suppress their residential address from public view if they believe displaying it could put their safety or family's safety at risk [11].
This actually provides **more flexibility** for director privacy than existed before.
**Key context:** The DIN scheme is an accountability mechanism, not a transparency reduction measure.
Public information about directors continues to be disclosed; what changed is that government now maintains a verified, persistent identifier to prevent fraudulent directorship claims and track problematic individuals across the corporate landscape.
Directors' names, addresses, appointment dates, and other personal details remain in the public ASIC register as they did before the scheme was introduced [4][6].
The DIN is a separate, non-public regulatory identifier used by government for fraud prevention and enforcement, not a replacement for the public register.
Directors' names, addresses, appointment dates, and other personal details remain in the public ASIC register as they did before the scheme was introduced [4][6].
The DIN is a separate, non-public regulatory identifier used by government for fraud prevention and enforcement, not a replacement for the public register.