Editorial

Could federated ID solve the challenge of the ‘thin file’ service user?

is there huge potential for federated ID in local authority contexts – especially when it comes to eligibility and counter-fraud checks?

Posted 23 May 2018 by Gary Flood


Could federated ID schemes be the only realistic way that so-called ‘thin file’ customers – service users with small digital footprints and often a severe lack of documentation – can be successfully enfolded into digital government approaches?

Taht is certainly the position of a number of practitioners, including Ian Litton.

The former local government IT leader, who now works for Positive Attributes, told delegates at last Friday’s successful Think Digital Identity for Government 2018 that his experiences working with Digital Identity had left him with a belief that, “When it comes to helping thin file users, federated really does seem ideal – and on that basis, while I do agree it does need to change and it does need to develop, I would see GOV.UK Verify as the only game in town in terms of delivering it.”

Litton was speaking during a special panel discussion on the potential for Identity services in the UK public sector outside of central government, which so far has proven to be the primary adopter of the Verify ID assurance scheme.

And his was a position echoed by another public sectore-government ID veteran, Stuart Young, who is now MD of a firm called Etive Technologies.

“Federated Identity is a huge opportunity for cost savings in local government, and most of all for the thin file user,” he stated.

Proving eligibility, streamlining processes and cutting fraud could all happen a lot easier for this class of user, argued Young, claiming 53% of fraud is identity-related.

“Only 53% of UK citizens have driving licences and only 31% of us have any credit reference, so accepted ways of checking identity are increasingly inadequate,” he added.

The good news is, he went on, is that use of federated ID could slot in very well at Town Halls, which have checking processes, he claims, are “much better than banks’s”.

Main picture (c) Joseph Spear, Director Marketing, Mvine Ltd – with thanks