Overview

BGLiD supports several different types of identification. This article aims to outline where to locate information needed to complete an identity request, a requirement for the BGLiD verification process.

Australian Driver's Licenses

While all Australian Driver's Licenses have a Licence Number and Card Number, these can appear in different positions based on the issuing state.

Refer to the appropriate tab below to see how to locate these numbers:

Medicare Cards

Three varieties of Medicare Cards are provided by the Australian Government. These include:

• Standard Medicare Cards (Green)
• Interim Medicare Cards (Blue)
• Reciprocal Medicare Cards (Yellow)

For details on differences between these cards, see Services Australia - Your Medicare Card.

1. Medicare Card Number (9 digit card number + 1 digit issue number)
2. Individual Reference Number (IRN) - This is required to differentiate individuals on the same card.

Foreign passports: How the check works

Conditions for acceptance

A non-Australian passport will only work if two things are true:

1. The contact holds a current Australian visa, and
2. The passport details (number, name, date of birth) match the visa grant record held by the Department of Home Affairs.

Visitors, people on expired visas, and anyone whose passport details don't match the Home Affairs record will fail. Even for legitimate visa holders, it's not a guarantee, it depends on whether the details in the system align exactly.

Why foreign passports involve more steps

Australian passports hit the Government's Document Verification Service (DVS) directly, which is a database match that comes back in seconds.

Foreign passports can't go through the DVS. The system has to do more work:

1. Document capture and OCR. The contact uploads a photo of their passport. The system runs optical character recognition (OCR) and authenticity checks to read the details and confirm the document is genuine.
2. Biometric liveness check. The contact completes a live selfie to match their face against the passport photo.
3. VEVO check. The system queries the Department of Home Affairs' Visa Entitlement Verification Online (VEVO) to confirm the contact's visa status and establish their identity records within Australia. This is what satisfies the requirement for a government-verified data source under AML/CTF obligations.

That's three steps instead of one, which is why foreign passport verifications take longer and are more likely to fail on photo quality or biometrics than Australian document checks.

Valid visa but still failing? Contact BGL Support with the contact's name, document type, and visa details. The most common cause is a mismatch between the passport details and the visa grant record held by Home Affairs.

Who this applies to