GOV.UK Verify was an identity assurance system developed by the British Government Digital Service (GDS) which was in operation between May 2016 and April 2023. The system was intended to provide a single trusted login across all British government digital services, verifying the user's identity in 15 minutes.[1] It allowed users to choose one of several companies to verify their identity to a standard level of assurance before accessing 22 central government online services.[2]

History

The Cabinet Office started work on the system in 2011, when it was known as the Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP).[1][3] A private beta phase began in February 2014,[4] moving into public beta on 14 October 2014.[5] The system was declared live on 24 May 2016.[6][7]

In June 2018, it was announced that the responsibility for digital ID policy had moved from GDS to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. Responsibility for development and rollout of GOV.UK Verify remained with GDS.[8]

Certified companies

Third-party companies were responsible for carrying out identity verification within the scheme. The first five companies – known as identity providers (IdPs) – that signed up to provide the service through a tender issued by the Department for Work & Pensions[9] were the Post Office, Verizon, Experian, Digidentity and Mydex CIC.[10] After a further tender issued by the Cabinet Office in 2014,[11] Barclays, GB Group, Morpho and Royal Mail became certified companies.[12]

While Mydex CIC participated in the original tender process, it did not go on to become a certified GOV.UK identity provider.[13] In 2016, Verizon was temporarily[14] and then permanently[15] removed from the list of certified providers.

In October 2018, GDS announced that five of the seven identity providers – Barclays, Digidentity, Experian, Post Office and SecureIdentity – had signed contracts for a further 18 months.[16] Users of Citizensafe from GB Group and Royal Mail's identity service would be able to continue using their GOV.UK Verify identity for twelve months, but would need to set up a new account through one of the other five companies.[16] On 24 March 2020, Barclays stopped providing new GOV.UK verify digital identities,[17] and both SecureIdentity and Experian subsequently also pulled out of providing identities for both new and existing customers.[18] This left only two providers: Post Office and Digidentity. The Post Office depended on Digidentity infrastructure to operate as an identity provider.[19]

Level of assurance

GOV.UK Verify certified companies had to verify customers' identities to level 2 as defined by the Good Practice Guide 45 published jointly by CESG and the Cabinet Office. This level of identity assurance is intended to be sufficient to support a claim in a civil court.[20]

List of connected services

The following 22 services were connected to GOV.UK Verify as of January 2020:[21]

Service Service provider
Total Reward Statements / Manage your NHS Pension NHS Business Services Authority
Get your State Pension Department for Work & Pensions
Sign your mortgage deed[22] HM Land Registry
Disclosure and barring service Home Office
Vehicle Operator Licensing Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency
Personal tax account HM Revenue & Customs
Check your income tax HM Revenue & Customs
Renew your short term medical driving licence Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency
Report a medical condition that affects your driving Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency
Check your state pension Department for Work & Pensions, HM Revenue & Customs
Universal Credit Digital Service Department for Work & Pensions
Help your friends or family with their tax HM Revenue & Customs
Claim a tax refund HM Revenue & Customs
Self Assessment tax return HM Revenue & Customs
Claim for redundancy payment Insolvency Service
View or share your driving licence information Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency
Rural Payments Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
PAYE for employees: Company car HM Revenue & Customs
Social Work England Identity Department for Education
Teacher Student Loan Reimbursement Scheme Department for Education
Add a driving licence check code to your mobile phone Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency
Defence Cyber Protection Partnership Ministry of Defence

By October 2022, only five of those services were still using Verify:[23]

Sign your mortgage deed HM Land Registry
Disclosure and barring service Home Office
Vehicle Operator Licensing Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency
Rural Payments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Add driving licence check code to your mobile phone Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency

Use beyond central government

Local government

GDS worked with local authorities from 2015 to pilot the use of GOV.UK Verify by local government.[24][25][26] Local government services piloted as of July 2017 included applying for free bus passes and 'blue badge' disabled parking permits.[27]

Private sector

From the outset, GDS had intended the use of GOV.UK Verify to be extended to the private sector. While work was underway in 2017,[28] this was still not in place in October 2018 when the GDS head Kevin Cunnington announced that "GOV.UK Verify is now mature enough for us to take it to the next stage – opening it up beyond the public sector for the private sector to take the lead".[16]

Cunnington announced that five of the identity providers had signed contracts for a further 18 months, after which the scheme would not receive further funding from government. The development of the scheme would instead be in the hands of the private sector.[16][29]

NHS

GOV.UK Verify was one of the options considered by the National Health Service for its citizen identity solution.[30] In November 2018, the NHS announced that it was pursuing its own app-based solution, but was looking for a way to enable people who have a GOV.UK Verify account to use it to log in to NHS systems.[31]

International

Work was underway to enable non-British citizens to access the service from September 2018.[27]

GOV.UK Verify was designed to allow interoperability with the ID schemes of other EU states, as part of the eIDAS scheme. On 28 August 2018, GOV.UK Verify took its first step towards enabling British residents to use their GOV.UK Verify account to log on to online public services in other EU countries.[32][33] The scheme was 'notified'[jargon] on 2 May 2019.[34]

Criticism

GOV.UK Verify did not meet various targets that GDS set for it:[35]

It does not meet all the identity requirements of government departments, such as identifying intermediaries or businesses.[35]

The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) reviewed Verify in July 2018, noting the department's reluctance to continue funding the project, with another report later that year recommending that the identity assurance programme should be terminated.[37]

In October 2018, Jo Platt, the Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, said that £130 million had been spent on developing GOV.UK Verify.[38]

Evolution and closure

In December 2018, GDS announced that over the next 18 months they would be working with standards bodies, identity providers and the private sector to:[39]

Computer Weekly expressed concern over this approach in August 2019.[19]

In April 2020, funding for GOV.UK Verify was extended by 18 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[40] In August 2020, trade association TechUK criticised the Government's progress since 2019 as being slow and opaque.[40] In April 2021, the platform was extended by a further two years.[41]

HMRC ceased to use Verify, which had been available for a limited number of online services in parallel with Government Gateway sign-in, with effect from April 2022.[42]

On 28 October 2022, it was announced that Verify would be closed, with no new accounts created from mid-December 2022 and all Verify services closed in April 2023.[23][43]

The Government Digital Service is developing a replacement service, the One Login For Government.[44]

See also

Further reading

References

  1. ^ a b Jee, Charlotte (24 May 2016). "UK government identity scheme GOV.UK Verify launched today: What is GOV.UK Verify? GOV.UK Verify explained". Computer World UK.
  2. ^ Merrett, Neil (16 February 2017). "GOV.UK Verify, NHS numbers and the 25 million user challenge". Government Computing.
  3. ^ Glick, Bryan (16 September 2014). "GDS unveils 'Gov.UK Verify' public services identity assurance scheme". Computer Weekly.
  4. ^ Curtis, Sophie (9 October 2014). "How the government plans to 'verify' your identity online". The Daily Telegraph.
  5. ^ Arthur, Charles (6 November 2014). "Gov.uk quietly disrupts the problem of online identity login". The Guardian.
  6. ^ Burton, Graeme (25 May 2016). "Gov.UK Verify: Late, unnecessary and finally launching this week". Computing.
  7. ^ Evenstad, Lis (19 May 2016). "Gov.uk Verify to go live 24 May 2016". Computer Weekly.
  8. ^ "Digital-identity policy function shifted from GDS to DCMS". PublicTechnology.net. 13 June 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  9. ^ "Contracts Finder Archive". data.gov.uk. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  10. ^ Nguyen, Anh (3 September 2013). "Government signs first identity assurance contracts". Computer World UK.
  11. ^ Jee, Charlotte (17 December 2014). "Cabinet Office seeking suppliers for GOV.UK Verify". Computer World UK.
  12. ^ Hughes, Janet (25 March 2015). "Procurement 2: New identity suppliers to join GOV.UK Verify". Identity Assurance blog. Government Digital Service.
  13. ^ "GOV.UK Verify and Mydex CIC | GOV.UK Verify". Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  14. ^ "Verizon "temporarily removed" as GOV.UK Verify ID provider - Government Computing Network". central-government.governmentcomputing.com. 20 July 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  15. ^ "The latest improvements across GOV.UK Verify's certified companies | GOV.UK Verify". 6 January 2017. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  16. ^ a b c d "Taking GOV.UK Verify to the next stage - Government Digital Service". gds.blog.gov.uk. 11 October 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  17. ^ "Barclays Identity Service | Barclays". www.barclays.co.uk.
  18. ^ "Experian to close more than two million Gov.uk Verify accounts". Computer Weekly.
  19. ^ a b Glick, Bryan (23 August 2019). "Three more identity providers to withdraw from troubled Gov.uk Verify programme". ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  20. ^ Simpson, Gary; Lindley, Emma. "Investigating Challenges in Digital Identity" (PDF). OIX UK. Open Identity Exchange: 4.
  21. ^ "Government services using GOV.UK Verify". GOV.UK. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
  22. ^ "Verifying a secure digital mortgage service - HM Land Registry". hmlandregistry.blog.gov.uk. 28 July 2017. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
  23. ^ a b "GOV.UK Verify is closing". Government Digital Service. 28 October 2022.
  24. ^ Mathieson, SA (29 March 2017). "LCIOC Latest: GDS, Verify, NHS Digital Services". Soctim blog.
  25. ^ Southern, Joanne (22 March 2017). "Guest post: working with GDS on transforming local services". Identity Assurance blog.
  26. ^ Hill, Rebecca (3 May 2017). "Local government Verify pilot hit by council departures". Public Technology.net.
  27. ^ a b Trendall, Sam (13 July 2017). "GOV.UK Verify to be extended to cover other countries next year". www.publictechnology.net.
  28. ^ Merrett, Neil (30 March 2017). "Summer launch planned for GOV.UK Verify private sector testing". Government Computing.
  29. ^ "UK.gov withdraws life support from flagship digital identity system". www.theregister.com.
  30. ^ Merrett, Neil (4 April 2017). "NHS Digital targets late September online identity launch". Government Computing.
  31. ^ "NHS login to use video for initial ID | UKAuthority". UKAuthority. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  32. ^ "GOV.UK Verify eID scheme pre-notified under eIDAS". CEF Digital. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  33. ^ "GOV.UK Verify eID scheme pre-notified under eIDAS" (PDF). European Commission. 24 January 2019.
  34. ^ "Overview of pre-notified and notified eID schemes under eIDAS - eID User Community - CEF Digital". ec.europa.eu. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  35. ^ a b Fishenden, Jerry (5 May 2017). "Gov.uk Verify and identity assurance - it's time for a rethink". Computer Weekly.
  36. ^ "Dashboard - GOV.UK Verify - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  37. ^ Glick, Bryan (5 September 2018). "Government projects watchdog recommends terminating Gov.uk Verify identity project". ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  38. ^ Trendall, Sam (12 October 2018). "Shadow minister slams government for 'abandoning its responsibility' on Verify". PublicTechnology.net. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  39. ^ "What's next for GOV.UK Verify? - Government Digital Service". gds.blog.gov.uk. 20 December 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
  40. ^ a b "Digital identities: the missing link in a UK digital economy" (PDF). TechUK. 27 August 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
  41. ^ Evenstad, Lis (28 April 2021). "Government extends Gov.uk Verify for a further two years". Computer Weekly. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  42. ^ "HMRC withdraws GOV.UK Verify". ICAEW. 29 March 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
  43. ^ Say, Mark (27 April 2023). "GDS closes GOV.UK Verify service". UKAuthority. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
  44. ^ "An update on One Login for Government - Government Digital Service". gds.blog.gov.uk. 24 August 2022. Retrieved 16 November 2022.

This article contains OGL licensed text This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: "Dashboard - GOV.UK Verify - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Retrieved 5 January 2020.

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