Venkat Maddali, Principal Architect Digital Identity & Biometrics, discusses why biometric and digital ID services are essential tools for managing contractor access at remote mining and energy sites.

Securing the extended mining and energy workforce

Australia's mining industry employs more than 300,000 workers, with contractors often accounting for half or more of a site workforce. These workers move between multiple operators, projects and locations.

This creates dangerous conditions for operators in mining and energy: high volumes of rapid-turnover workers requiring access, decentralised operations across remote sites, and regulatory obligations for rigorous identity verification.

The rising cost of third-party risk

Third-party access is a significant vulnerability point for critical infrastructure operators worldwide. Research shows that breaches involving third parties have doubled year-on-year, now accounting for 30% of all incidents¹. These breaches take longer to detect and cost more to remediate than internal incidents.

A 2025 report estimates the average cost of a third-party breach at USD $4.91 million², making it the second-most expensive attack vector after malicious insiders.

For mining and energy operators, the risks go beyond data breaches. Poorly managed contractor access can result in:

• safety incidents when unqualified personnel enter hazardous areas
• operational disruptions when access systems fail at remote sites
• compliance failures that trigger regulatory penalties
• reputational damage that affects licence to operate.

Regulatory pressure is intensifying

Australia's regulatory framework for critical infrastructure now explicitly addresses contractor identity and access management. The Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Program (CIRMP) requires operators to:

• minimise risks from malicious or negligent contractors
• control access to critical components
•  maintain robust offboarding processes.

Compliance has been mandatory for 13 critical infrastructure asset classes since February 2023, with annual board-approved reports now required.

The Australian Energy Sector Cyber Security Framework mandates identity and access management controls across 282 practices, including authentication, audit trails and personnel verification.

The Digital ID Act 2024 establishes an accreditation scheme for digital identity providers, with private sector participation opening in December 2026.

Why traditional approaches fail

Traditional contractor identity management typically involves a combination of physical ID cards, manual verification processes and access systems that don't communicate with each other. This approach struggles at scale and in the unique conditions of mining and energy operations.

Fragmented systems

Access rights don't follow the worker, so contractors moving between sites or operators must repeat onboarding.

Manual processes that don't scale

Physical ID verification, paper-based inductions and manual access approvals create bottlenecks.

Password and card-based authentication

Passwords and cards can be lost, stolen or lent to others.

Remote site constraints

When systems fail at a remote mine or energy site, authentication systems must continue to operate independently of network connectivity.

The complexity of contractor identity at scale

A leading mining provider had concerns with its contractor workforce of over 50,000 globally.

The company initiated a global contractor system program to create a 'contractor passport' that would work across sites and operations.

After four years and significant investment, the program concluded without achieving its objective.

An identity-first future

A growing number of operators are recognising the need for a fundamentally different approach – one that establishes verified identity once and binds it to portable credentials that follow the worker.

The 2025 Critical Infrastructure Annual Risk Review identifies workforce shortages and skill gaps as persistent challenges that will continue to shape critical infrastructure risk. As qualified personnel become harder to find, operators will rely increasingly on contractor workforces and technology partners to fill capability gaps.

This trajectory points toward ‘identity-first operations’, where verified digital identity is the foundation for all workforce interactions from recruitment to final offboarding.

For many critical infrastructure operators, the question is shifting from whether to implement digital identity for contractor management to how quickly they can move from fragmented legacy approaches to integrated, biometrically secured systems.

Digital identity and biometrics are the foundations of modern contractor management

The solution to fragmented contractor identity management lies in a fundamentally different approach: establishing verified identity once and binding it to portable credentials that follow the worker. The core principles include:

Verified identity

Instead of relying on documents that can be forged or borrowed, biometric authentication confirms that the person presenting for access is the person they claim to be. The credential becomes inseparable from the individual.

Portable credentials

Once identity is established, qualifications, certifications and access rights can be bound to that identity and recognised across multiple sites and operators.

Revocable access

When qualifications expire, contracts end, or access needs to be revoked, make it immediate across all connected systems.

​​​​​Zero-trust alignment

Every access request is authenticated at the point of access, regardless of previous authorisations. This aligns with zero-trust security principles and best practice for critical infrastructure.

NEC's industrial-grade identity for harsh environments

NEC Australia brings more than 50 years of biometrics research and development experience to contractor identity management. As the biometric engine behind India's Aadhaar program, the world's largest identity system covering 1.35 billion identities, NEC has proven its technology on a global scale.

In practice, digital identity and biometrics cannot be separated – effective identity systems increasingly depend on both operating together at scale.

Three core identity capabilities

Identity proofing

When a contractor first enrols, NEC's high-assurance workflow validates their identity through multi-layered analysis of identity documents, in full compliance with ICAO 9303, ISO 18013, and BSI TR-03105. The platform captures biometric data and performs liveness detection that is ISO/IEC 30107-3 compliant, having passed Level 1 and Level 2 Presentation Attack Detection conformance testing.

Authentication management

Once enrolled, contractors authenticate using biometrics. NEC's standards-based approach defends against AI-driven fraud through liveness and presentation attack detection, ensuring the person is physically present and not using photos, videos or deepfakes.

Identity binding

The system maintains the link between a contractor's verified identity and their access rights across multiple sites over time. This enables ‘contextual identity’: credentials tailored to specific purposes that bind verified identity to qualifications, certifications and site-specific access rights.

Face recognition in harsh operational environments

Multi-modal biometrics means the system can use different methods depending on conditions, with face recognition as the primary identifier.

Your face is the key. Face recognition is reliable even when contractors wear hard hats, safety glasses and other PPE. But in harsh operational environments, traditional fingerprint biometrics struggle as fingerprints can change over time.

Independent benchmarking reinforces this approach, with NEC consistently ranked first for accuracy and fairness in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Face Recognition Vendor Test.

Edge devices for offline capability

Remote mining and energy sites face connectivity limitations that demand offline capability.

Edge-based identity verification enables authentication to continue even when central systems or network connectivity are unavailable.

Configurable workflows and integration

NEC's platform provides full customer identity verification workflow orchestration through an admin portal, allowing organisations to customise authentication for different contractor types or security levels. Each step and decision path is configurable.

The solution integrates with existing access control hardware and IT authentication systems via secure OpenID Connect. This allows digital identity to be introduced without wholesale replacement of existing access control or authentication infrastructure.

Digital ID Benefits

Where to start: Assessing contractor identity risk

Most organisations begin with a structured discovery session to assess contractor identity risk, operational friction, and regulatory exposure before evaluating technology options.​​​​

Contact NEC to schedule a discovery session

¹ Third-party breach statistics: Verizon 2025 DBIR
² Cost of third-party breach: IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025