If you build it, they will leave: experts warn UK gov’t on digital ID approach

The UK Cabinet Office’s consultation on digital identity closed on Tuesday,

Digital systems built by governments tend to decline over time because they are not adapted, the way the private sector sustains products by adapting them to markets as they change, says Tony Allen.

Allen, CEO of the Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS), makes his case in a LinkedIn post on “Why Governments Shouldn’t Build Their Own Digital ID Systems.”

But this is precisely what the Starmer government is doing, argues Richard Oliphant in his own LinkedIn post and accompanying briefing paper responding to the consultation.

The balance in the current system, where One Login provides identity verification and access to public services, and the Digital Verification Services (DVS) Trust Framework, is about to disrupted. When the GOV.UK Wallet is launched to host government-issued verifiable credentials like mobile driving licenses (mDLs), it will bring it into competition with DVS providers from the private sector.

“The fundamental question we should ask and which has not been adequately addressed in the consultation paper is this: WHAT would a national digital ID offer the UK public that cannot be matched by a combination of (a) One Login; (b) the GOV UK Wallet and government-issued VCs; and DVS serviced from the 40+ identity providers that have been certified against the DVS Trust Framework,” Oliphant writes.

Combined with statements elsewhere, the consultation paper represents the creation of an uneven playing field with a fledgling market which, if Allen and Oliphant are both correct, is more likely to deliver a sustainable digital identity system in the long run.

The Competition and Markets Authority should step in to take a look as the DVS market, Oliphant concludes.

The UK is only mentioned once in Allen’s latest post, but it clearly expands on points made in his consultation response. The one allusion to the UK raises the spectre of GOV.UK Verify; “a failure to sustain momentum in a system that required constant evolution.”

Allen’s response to the consultation focused on the contrast between the relative readiness of the technology and the immaturity of the regulatory system’s governance. OfDIA gets singled out for a concentration of power that he believes undermines the system.

Article Topics

digital government  |  digital identity  |  government services  |  UK digital ID