UK gov’t proceeding with GOV.UK and private sector digital ID plans as DSIT closes

The UK government is closing the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) that has been responsible for regulating private sector digital ID through the Digital Verification Services Trust Framework, as well as the One Login program. Those efforts represent the bulk of the Kingdom’s digital ID system with the cancellation of former Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s plan for a national digital ID.

DSIT was created by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government in 2023, and falls to PM Andy Burnham’s shuffling of priorities and responsibilities, the BBC reports.

The Financial Times has reported that DSIT’s functions will be split between the Department for Business and Trade (which Global Governance Forum reports is being renamed the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, or DBIST) and DCMS, though the government has yet to announce what will happen to the DVS Trust Framework.

Some of the work the Cabinet Office was doing on digital ID is being shut down, the rest moved to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), according to PoliticsHome.

Startup Coalition Head Dom Hallas told the BBC that DSIT’s closure is “clearly a bad thing,” but praised the elevation of AI Minister Kanishka Narayan to a cabinet position. The Coalition and TechUK wrote to Burnham to complain that closing DSIT would send a negative signal to the DVS sector just as it is growing by 10 percent annually, UKAuthority reports.

The government plans to continue with the Blueprint for Modern Digital Government, the PM’s official spokesperson told PoliticsHome, which includes the GOV.UK app, the associated digital wallet and OneLogin, along with a mobile driver’s license (mDL), as anticipated by The Institute for Government and Richard Oliphant, among others.

Redirected savings

Burnham’s spokesperson also said the government has spent about 15 million pounds (roughly US$20.1 million) so far developing the digital ID policy. The government is cancelling the digital ID consultation and preparatory work by departments, so there won’t be much to show for it.

Burnham’s spokesperson says that “departments that were going to have to fund digital ID through from within their existing budgets” will redirect savings toward other priorities.

Burnham says the money saved would go toward removing a federal tax from household energy bills.

The funding, however, was expected to come essentially as an advance on efficiencies delivered by the digital ID, so it is not clear that there will be any savings to departments.

Institute for Fiscal Studies Director Helen Miller says that the digital ID cost was expected to mostly take the form of upfront investment, so its cancellation “cannot fund a permanent tax cut.”

Article Topics

Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT)  |  digital identity  |  DVS Trust Framework  |  GOV.UK Wallet  |  OneLogin  |  UK digital ID