OfDIA makes the (use) case for digital verification services

Having established the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF) and the digital verification services (DVS) that it certifies, the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) now has to get people in the UK to use them.

A blog post from OfDIA says the agency is “working to unlock new opportunities” for DVS that have been vetted against the DIATF’s rules and standards for what qualifies as a trusted digital identity service.

“We know there are hundreds of use cases that could benefit from adopting DVS, but without unlimited resources, we had to figure out where to focus our effort to remove barriers and boost adoption.” To do so, OfDIA considered three factors: an existing regulatory framework, whether there is “scope for rapid progress to be made,” and potential benefits as measured against the status quo.

The results focused efforts on three areas. The first is in employment, specifically hiring and onboarding new employees. OfDIA says the use of DVS is already widespread; “we see millions of secure and privacy preserving digital right to work and disclosure and barring service checks taking place each month, reducing time spent on these from days to just minutes, and getting new employees into new jobs much sooner.”

The other two priority use cases for DVS are age verification and financial services.

Age assurance under the mistletoe looks possible

The promise of being able to use a digital ID to prove one’s age at the pub has been dangled as a carrot since last Christmas, when then-Technology Secretary Peter Kyle (since shuffled to Business and Trade) promised a season of cheer free from the burden of physical ID. “You can raise a glass in your local pub without hassle,” Kyle said, “a merry step forward in making age verification safer, easier, and more convenient for everyone.”

OfDIA says that timeline for rollout is still intact: “we expect changes to be in place by the end of the year, and are currently focusing our efforts on the requirements, to keep these checks safe and secure.” The agency identifies age restricted goods and services as a “clear regulatory driver for age checks” that can improve customer experience and improve efficiency.

While alcohol purchases are the headline, the intention is to extend age assurance use cases to sales of things like vapes, tobacco, fireworks and lottery tickets. OfDIA says it “working across government to promote consistency in the rules for the sale of other age restricted products.”

OfDIA looks to give clarity to financial services on digital identity

The financial services angle points to Know Your Customer (KYC) checks for onboarding new customers and “clear benefits to being able to ensure that payments have been authorized by the right person, without that person needing to visit their bank in person.”

KYC often comes with a side of AML – or, in the UK, obligations under the Money Laundering Regulations (MLRs). OfDIA is aiming to address a “lack of clarity” in financial services on how digital identities can be leveraged for compliance. As such, it is producing new guidance to clarify the definition of a digital identity and “give further detail on how trust framework certified DVS can be used in line with the MLRs’ risk-based approach.”

While employment, age verification and financial services are currently top priorities, the larger plan for DIATF-certified DVS involves expanding into sectors like property and travel.

Digital transformania: change sweeping across UK public sector

Digital transformation is happening across the UK government. The new exchequer secretary to the Treasury, Dan Tomlinson, is promising to make HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) into “an agile department, with modern IT infrastructure.”

Speaking at the annual HMRC conference this week, Tomlinson promised to roll out a range of new digital services and upgrades planned for launch. He also said that the user base of the HMRC app has increased by 1.2 million over the past six months and that “three quarters of all customer interactions with HMRC now happen through digital self-serve”

Per reporting in Public Technology, the reform is intended to help the government bring in an extra 7.5 billion pounds (about 10.1 billion dollars) of revenue each year.

The UK health sector is also seeing upheaval, as the government works to shutter NHS England and fold its duties into the national body into the Department of Health and Social Care.

Opposition MPs have raised questions about how the move will affect digital services, and the implications for retention of patient data. Officials say the massive overhaul of how the nation’s healthcare is administered won’t be a problem.

Article Topics

digital ID  |  digital identity  |  identity verification  |  OfDIA  |  onboarding  |  UK digital ID