NSW drivers licence photos could be part of national database under new laws Thu 6 Aug 2026 at 11:36am , updated Thu 6 Aug 2026 at 12:36pm In short: NSW drivers licence photos could be shared to a national facial recognition database under new laws being proposed in the state. The move is part of a bill introduced to state parliament on Thursday to crack down on identity fraud and organised crime networks. Police access to unredacted photos from public toll roads could be granted as part of the new laws. The New South Wales government is planning to join a national facial recognition service, aimed at preventing identity fraud, as part of a wider bill strengthening police powers around investigating organised crime networks. Focused on expanding laws to keep up with technology and complex crime networks, the state government introduced a bill to parliament on Thursday. The proposed suite of laws included the state's involvement in a Commonwealth face matching service, which shares ID photos, such as on a drivers licence, with a nation-wide database. If passed, NSW would become the third state to join the National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution, after South Australia and Western Australia. NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said the new laws would prevent the use of stolen identities in criminal conduct. "Organised criminals will exploit any vulnerability that they can, and we know that they use fake identity documents to create bank accounts that are used to funnel and to launder their crook cash," she said. Ms Catley said the government took "people's privacy very seriously", and the database would only be used for identity verification. "When an authorised agency or organisation submits an image for verification, the system compares it against its records and returns only a yes or no response. That