GOV.UK Verify is a secure way for users to prove they are who they say they are online. It means people can access services, like filing their tax or checking the information on their driving licence, without having to prove their identity in person or waiting for something to arrive in the post.
GOV.UK Verify is part of the wider government Verify programme, which aims to ensure that users can create, use and reuse digital identities across public and private sector services.
Government Digital Service director general Kevin Cunnington blogged about the future of GOV.UK Verify in October. At the time, we had recently signed contracts with 5 private sector identity providers.
Now, we want to provide more details about the priorities for the Verify programme over the next 18 months. We’ll be working on them with a number of other government departments.
Help make the standards for digital identity easier to follow and use
For the digital identity standards to be widely used, they need to be flexible and clear enough to meet a range of needs. That’s why we’ll be continuing to work with private and public sector organisations to:
- make the government identity standards easier to understand and use
- make sure people can use more types of identity evidence to prove it’s really them
Help digital identities work across private and public sector services
Users should only have to prove their identity online once. We want to remove barriers so that digital identities work across sectors, enabling users to reuse the same digital identity to access different services.
Make better use of government data
The government has data about its users that public and private organisations can use to help verify users’ identities. This data is never stored in one place or shared without users’ permission.
Making better use of it means more users can prove who they are online and access more services faster.
Help build confidence in the digital identity market
We know we need to help private sector organisations broaden the usage and application of digital identity and grow the emerging market.
By working with organisations and users to provide a clear data, standards and assurance model, we can open up the market and build private and public sector understanding of the importance of a standards-based approach to identity checking.
We will not be doing it alone
We’ll continue to work with other parts of government, standards bodies, trade associations, GOV.UK Verify identity providers and other private sector organisations to ensure digital identity is used to protect services from cyber threats, and other malicious activity.
We'll make sure users can prove their identities and access the services they need to more easily. Together, we’ll do the hard work so users do not have to.
Find out more about GOV.UK Verify or email the Verify team if you have any questions.
3 comments
Comment by Mike posted on
My wife tried to renew her DVLA medical driving licence online but was forced to register with Gov.uk Verify first. It took 1 hour to get to a point where her registration with Barclays Identity Service was rejected at the very end, not the promised 5-15 mins. Stupidly, it rejected her RBS current account details (a very active account that she has held for decades and which has been used many times as proof of ID when applying for numerous financial products). There were no helpful instructions or contact details at the reject point! It took 1hr because there were several more personal details than we were warned about that we had to go digging through historical files to find. If pre-warned we could have got those ready. We rang DVLA about the reject but they said we'd need to ring Barclays - helpful! We rang Barclays Identity Service and the advisor said that the issue was that, due to the age of the account, my wife would probably be on a very private account contract that did not allow any sharing of information. (Strange how this has never caused an issue before!). We advised of a more modern current account but the advisor said that that provider was also very restrictive! I asked the advisor to name other providers that would work but she was unable to do that. The advisor suggested we try a different Identity Service as they accepted a wider range of financial proofs. This is a poor service! My wife already has a Government Gateway account. Why isn't DVLA just using that? I note the recent articles regarding massive projected overspend of the Gov.UK Verify project, on top of the £130m already spent, and the resistance by the Treasury/Govt to sinking any more of our money in this fiasco. My wife now refuses to use the online DVLA Medical Driving Licence Renewal service. Instead she is doing it by paper/post as normal. Very disappointed! Very disgruntled!
Comment by Spencer Gasson posted on
Was any consideration given to encouraging bids from the public sector, particuarly for offline models of this, such as in Post Office branches or libraries or in connection with voter registration?
Comment by PO posted on
THE GOV.UK VERIFY DID NOT WORK FOR ME. I am higher rate tax payer in my 70's. I have lived in the same house for over 30 years, but I do not borrow money and very rarely default on my credit card. Consequently I have a very limited credit record that the security companies can see. As a consequence Barclays security would not validate me. I think publicly available credit ratings is a poor way of validating identity. I am pretty computer literate having worked at a senior level in business for a major corporate for 40 years. I found the whole process tedious and very time consuming. I ended up using my old HMRC login to file self assessment. The government has loads of info about me through its various agencies. It should be cross referencing these to validate my identity, not using external agencies who do not have the access to this info.