The Government Digital Service (GDS) has reportedly secured up to £400 million for its ‘One Login’ digital identity system.
Last week’s Budget noted that the Cabinet Office had been given “funding to progress development of One Login”, but did not include any figures for how much was to be allocated. However, Computer Weekly says it has learned that, while final details have yet to be concluded, HM Treasury has agreed to a budget in the region of £400 million for the project.
The money will be paid across three years, and it is believed that funding for years two and three will be dependent on progress of the project. A first public prototype is due to be available in April 2022.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “We have secured a considerable funding commitment to develop single sign-on over the next three years.”
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The publication reported that GDS has in the past had to make repeated requests to the Treasury for additional budget to continue development of the failed £220m Gov.uk Verify digital identity system – which will be replaced by One Login.
Currently, departments delivering government services currently have to build or buy their own sign-on and identity services, resulting in people having to enter the same information multiple times when accessing different services.
The GDS has previously said that most of government’s existing digital identity solutions “have been designed, developed and operated in departmental silos, with a focus only on meeting each department’s own needs. For users, this is a confusing and frustrating picture of government is expensive and opens the door to fraud and error.”
However, with OneLogin, GDS effort to provide a single way for users to prove who they are in logging into any government service.
