And after all that… Government decides to keep funding Verify until 2021!

Truly, we live in exceptional times: the on-going COVID-19 crisis has seen all sorts of truly unpredictable things happen. Well, now we have another astonishing volte face; after telling us since late 2018 it wanted shot of the thing, the Government’s now turned round and decided to keep funding its controversial GOV.UK Verify scheme for at least another 18 months.

The reason is also somewhat eye-raising, as its claimed to be because one of the system’s supposed biggest critics, DWP, has told the Cabinet Office it needs to keep Verify going due to the need to on-board so many new Universal Credit claimants, due to the economic shut-down that’s put so many people out of immediate work.

Specifically, in a written Parliamentary answer last week, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove revealed that,

As you will know, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented demand for key online services using digital identity such as Universal Credit. In this light, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has given approval to the Cabinet Office to continue GOV.UK Verify operations for up to a further 18 months.

The Government has also taken steps to bolster the resilience of the service which is facing an unprecedented level of usage.

During this time the Government will continue to update the House on our broader work as it progresses.

Quite what this means for the UK Digital Identity ecosystem, which had just more or less started plans for a post-Verify world… remains to be seen.

As a write-up of the surprise announcement in government IT news website PublicTechnology.Net summarises it, there’s quite a lot that does indeed remain to be seen:

When it was announced that Verify was to head into private sector ownership, the government signed support contracts, covering the planned 18-month handover period, with five of the service’s seven identity providers.

Deals were signed with Barclays, Digidentity, Experian, Post Office, and SecureIdentity, while CitizenSafe and Royal Mail opted to end their support for the platform.

As of 23 March 2020, users can now only create a new identity account with two of these commercial partners: Digidentity and Post Office. 

However, until 24 March 2021, accounts created using an identity provided by Barclays, Experian, and SecureIdentity can still be used by citizens to access government services protected by Verify. 

It is not known whether the 18-month investment announced by Gove is an effective extension of the previous contracts between government and the commercial partners and, if so, whether contracts have been signed only with the two remaining providers of new identities.

Nor is it clear how much money has been committed via the new government backing, what recent efforts to improve Verify’s capacity have entailed or, ultimately, what will happen to the service from September 2021.

Obviously, we’ll keep you updated on all this – but we may have to wait until ‘normality’ returns for the full picture.

Whenever that is, of course. What next: System Integrators knocking 50% of their fees, as they admit they’ve been coining it in too long even for them?