Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Tax Office releases AUSkey for Linux

Tested with Ubuntu, may work other Linux distributions

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has made good on its promise to support Linux in its next-generation authentication software, dubbed AUSkey, with the reference distribution being Ubuntu with the Firefox Web browser.

In October the ATO said AUSkey for Linux would be available before the end of the year after fist announcing its intention to support the platform back in July.

AUSkey is the ATO’s new public key infrastructure (PKI) authentication software for secure data exchange when submitting tax returns and other information and is necessary to use the Department of Treasury’s Standard Business Reporting (SBR) program.

SBR is online at: https://www.sbr.gov.au.

Up until now, AUSkey ran on Windows and Mac OS X only and some Linux users who previously used the old common-use signing interface (CSI) client for Mac OS X were left stranded when it was replaced with the new AUSKey.

In an announcement from the ATO today, the AUSkey registration, download and installation process has been “successfully tested with Ubuntu 10.04 and Firefox 3.6 and may also work with other versions”.

“The latest release will assist software developers to integrate AUSkey into their financial and accounting software packages for Linux users,” the statement read.

However, a Linux user with an AUSkey “may not automatically guarantee Linux-based access to the government online services that accept AUSkey”.

To find out which government agencies accept AUSkey, see: http://www.abr.gov.au/auskey.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Australian Taxation Office, Linux, Ubuntu
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: ATO, Auskey, Australian Taxation Office (ATO), authentication, Linux, pki, SBR, ubuntu
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Virtualise, Manage, Backup, Consolidate
    Datacenter sprawl is one of the larger challenges that datacenter managers are facing today. Over time, applications, servers, and storage can create many unique architectures across the IT infrastructure. This can introduce complexity, increase costs, and compromise business-critical application performance and availability. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Fixing Your Dropbox Problem - How the Right Data Protection Strategy Can Help
    It’s estimated that more than 50 million people have used public cloud storage services such as Dropbox to share and exchange files. Public cloud services are so easy to use that their openness can undermine existing IT policies regarding the transmission of confidential data. With data volumes threatening to overwhelm onsite storage, IT managers are looking to find a solution that’s affordable and secure. This paper details a simple three-step approach to helping users manage access to the public cloud without placing your data or your business at risk. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • HP and Closed Circuit Print Security Podcast featuring Quorcirca
    Managing Security risks within Enterprise printing environments
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments