How governments benefit From better Gen Z identity verification

By Jordan Burris, vice president of public sector strategy for Socure

When the government has millions of Gen Z people failing to receive services, it creates numerous negative impacts and externalities. As a direct negative impact, Gen Z often residents fail to get the benefits they deserve and pay taxes for. They infer the government doesn’t care, so they stop engaging with the government. This leads to distrust and frustration in institutions, which polling research has shown is at historically high levels, especially with Gen Z.

Next, government agencies spend billions of dollars on call centers and in-person options for residents who can’t get through online services. It’s simple: if fewer legitimate Gen Z residents are denied, the government won’t need to spend as much on support. Right now, the government is forced to spend huge sums of money just to answer the phone. We can reduce the burden on government agencies by increasing auto-acceptance rates for Gen Z.

Improved identity verification also adds huge value for customer experience. Satisfaction in government services runs well behind most private sector services, with the federal government rating worst of all. Better customer experience also reduces negative media coverage and perception. While the Biden administration has made a concerted effort to improve customer experience by issuing an executive order on the topic in December 2021, identity verification remains one of the biggest challenges for government agencies. Solve identity, and you can resolve many customer experience issues at once.

Lastly, the government should be moving toward digital channels as a matter of principle. A recent McKinsey report found that 60 percent of all residents prefer digital channels, but 80% needed to switch between digital and physical channels during their interactions with government agencies. The people have spoken: they want digital channels, and they find it incredibly frustrating when they can’t use them.

By 2030, it’s estimated Gen Z will represent 27 percent of the world’s income and surpass that of Millennials the following year. If governments continue to leave Gen Z behind, they risk losing productivity, revenue, and trust from the main drivers of economic activity. With better identity verification, we can prevent this from happening.

About the author

Jordan Burris is vice president of public sector strategy for Socure. He was formerly the chief of staff in the White House’s Office of the Federal CIO, where he was responsible for orchestrating the execution of technology and cybersecurity efforts across two presidential administrations to include the oversight of the federal government’s $90 billion+ technology budget.

DISCLAIMER: Biometric Update’s Industry Insights are submitted content. The views expressed in this post are that of the author, and don’t necessarily reflect the views of Biometric Update.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  identity verification  |  Socure  |  user experience