UK plots practical baby steps on digital ID, and an ambitious leap

Digital ID is coming to the UK from a couple of different directions, raising questions for stakeholders along the way. Among them: How many IDs does it take to stop a boat?  What if the boat is small?

The Telegraph counts 16 ways for UK nationals to prove they have the right to work in the Kingdom. To hire a legal migrant, employers are already expected to see an eVisa.

But a government-issued digital ID might be harder to spoof, and therefore help prevent ineligible people from being hired.

Partisan thinktank Labour Together, which reportedly has close ties to the current UK government, believes so, and has made this the central argument in its proposal for the introduction of a “BritCard.”

Cost questions

Labour Together estimated Home Office could issue digital IDs universally for between 150 million pounds and £400 million (approximately US$201 million to $537 million). The policy group’s estimate is less than Home Office spends annually on reducing illegal immigration.

The Telegraph quotes technology strategist Rachel Coldicutt, who is ED of research and social impact organization Careful Industries, suggesting that the price tag could have “another zero” on top of Labour’s figures.

And if employers aren’t checking for eVisas now, which officially replaced biometric residence cards earlier this month, will they check a digital ID? They might, proponents say, if it is easier and less costly.

Home Office has announced it will share the location of hotels housing asylum-seekers with food delivery companies to cut down on the number of illegally employed workers, weeks after the companies themselves committed to “tightening checks,” in the words of the BBC, which presumably means carrying out effective ones.

DWP integration could nearly double One Login users

The Department for Work and Pensions plans to work with the Government Digital Service on the rollout of GOV.UK One Login and the broader digital government strategy being formulated. GDS is currently working on an update to its three-year digital plan.

DWP integrated One Login with its service for remitting benefits overpayments, its first service to use the government’s single-sign on (SSO) system according to the Department’s annual report, last November. DWP has nearly 23 million users, according to PublicTechnology, and GDS hopes many of them without a One Login account will sign up for the service, boosting its user base of around 12 million.

GDS released the privacy policy for identity verifications with One Login in June, and the GOV.UK app, which will eventually house a mobile driver’s license (mDL), and maybe one day a BritCard, was launched to public beta at the beginning of July.

In the meantime, getting past the age restrictions the Online Safety Act puts in place for UK internet users is seen by some as the killer app that will motivate universal uptake of digital identity wallets, like GOV.UK’s.

But if GDS realizes its ambitions for One Login or the GOV.UK Wallet, most adults will already hold digital IDs by the time any BritCard proposal reaches the point of issuance.

Article Topics

BritCard  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  GOV.UK Wallet  |  One Login  |  UK digital ID