The lack of reliable digital ID services is severely limiting the UK’s future as a leading digital economy.
The report says that the UK’s digital progress will be hampered unless there are secure and reliable ways to prove people’s identity when accessing goods and services online. It says that, currently, businesses providing services online are still forced to perform “expensive, and often unreliable” checks on the information that their customers provide.
That’s according to a new report, The UK’s Digital Identity Dilemmas, from think thank Policy Exchange.
It believes that the government has a vital role to play in setting the regulatory standards and liabilities for digital ID services in the “fragmented” private sector.
“It must support the creation of a fully-functioning digital identity marketplace across both the public and private sectors, and one which is recognised in the EU and internationally,” it says.
The think tank argues that creating a viable digital ID ecosystem can help to prevent fraud across both the public and private sectors and reduce administrative costs for businesses. Furthermore, digital vaccine certificates, stored in a decentralised way on users’ phones and not on a central server, could help open up the economy once reliable COVID vaccinations are developed and widely available.
Recommendations
Policy Exchange lists eleven recommendations for the government to overcome the current barriers to digital ID. These include creating a dedicated ministerial portfolio for digital identity and publishing a 10-year Digital ID Strategy. Additionally, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) should continue to accelerate the launch of The Confirm Your Identity (CYI) service, which helps Universal Credit claimants prove their identity online during the application process.
However, it notes that it is important to preserve traditional methods of identity checks. It says there are “many individuals who either lack the skills or resources to access services online or who may always feel uncomfortable creating and using a digital ID.”
“The government should acknowledge this fact and ensure that there is never a situation in which having a digital ID is mandatory or that certain public services are only accessible through the creation and use of a digital identity. To do so will assuage any public concerns about digital ID policy and will also ensure that public services remain accessible to all.”
To that point, digital infrastructure minister, Matt Warman, has said that ID cards will not be mandatory in the UK.
