Government faces questions about Gov.uk Wallet, asks its own questions about digital ID

Industry concern over the UK government’s plan to launch the Gov.uk Wallet continues to rise towards a boil, and meetings between government and representatives from the biometrics and digital ID sector are afoot.

Tomorrow will see the Department of Science, Information and Technology (DSIT) sit down with the Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA), techUK, the Association of Digital Verification Professionals (ADVP) and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Digital Identity to discuss the matter.

And in a session of Parliament on Tuesday, Julie Dawson, chief policy and regulatory officer at Yoti and a representative of the first three groups mentioned above, made the case for digital ID and warned that lack of clarity around the Gov.uk Wallet program could create too much overlap with private sector products.

“This is where the industry is really concerned,” Dawson said in remarks to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, summoning the image of a Venn diagram with an uncertain middle. “Could this be basically a de facto government monopoly? Because they’re not clear what those boundaries are.”

Where, in other words, does the private sector’s claim begin and the government’s end?

Andrew Chevis, chief executive of CitizenCard, joined Dawson in Parliament, to tout the benefits and necessities of continuing to offer a physical ID option (like a card). When pressed to answer, of the government’s verification program, “is it a digital ID, yes or no,” his response reflected the hesitance in the UK around the language of digital ID.

“I think it could be the beginning of a state digital identity card,” he said, but “I understand people don’t want to call it that.” He notes that the more choices are available for citizens, the less likely they are to interpret the Gov.uk Wallet as an attempt to force a mandatory digital ID on the populace for the purpose of entrenching state control.

He also makes a point of mentioning the news that One Login, the verification scheme attached to the Gov.uk Wallet, is no longer accredited under its own framework. “It’s not entirely clear why that is, but what that illustrates absolutely is the concern that the government does need to be incredibly careful about how it goes forward with the Gov.uk Wallet.”

Data (Use and Access) Bill batted around House of Lords

The impression from the Parliament session is of a government that is unsure on a basic level what it is planning to offer in its own product, or how to manage the various parties and stakeholders vying to join the ecosystem. The hemming and hawing is further reflected in a request by the House of Lords, asking the government to think again on the Data (Use and Access) Bill.

A release from UK Parliament says that “on Monday 12 May, members of the Lords considered changes made to the bill by MPs in the Commons in a process known as parliamentary ’ping pong’.”

Votes on proposed changes to the bill included the issue of how “sex data” is defined when collected by public authorities, the definition of “scientific research” and the practice of processing personal data for that purpose, and transparency of business data used in relation to AI models.

Article Topics

CitizenCard  |  Data (Use and Access) Bill (DUA)  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  Gov.UK  |  identity management  |  legislation  |  UK  |  Yoti