A driving licence in an app is a boost for digital identity - but not for angry suppliers
It’s rare that a digital government development attracts interest from mainstream media, but last month’s announcement of a digital driving licence brought widespread national coverage and a mass turnout from the Westminster press pack for the launch event hosted by secretary of state for technology Peter Kyle.
Kyle’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) must have been delighted, and not just with the levels of interest – any boost in public perception for the mobile phone-based driving licence will be vital for its take-up once released later this year.
Ticks in boxes all round, you’d think. Instead, there’s a potential row brewing with the private sector digital identity market. Let’s take a step back and review how we got here.
More than 50 suppliers have now achieved conformance with the snappily titled digital identity and attributes trust framework (DIATF), a government trust-mark scheme for any software used to prove you are who you say you are when interacting online with certain public services.
For example, if you need to prove your eligibility to work or to rent property in the UK, you now have the option (alongside traditional paper methods) of using one of several DIATF-approved apps to verify your identity. More services will be added over time, and the government also hopes that DIATF approval will provide consumers with confidence in using digital verification tools for private sector services too, such as opening a bank account or online shopping.
In the short term, the emerging prize for competing app suppliers comes when purchasing age-dependent products such as alcohol or fireworks. Online safety legislation will make age verification compulsory for many adult-only services – plans to crack down on children buying knives on the web will most likely depend on such functionality.
Digital age verification will help in-store too – for example, using an approved app to show you’re over 18 when buying alcohol in a supermarket.
And of course, if you get familiar with using a digital identity app for age verification, it’s likely you’ll use the same app for other services too. It’s a promising Trojan horse for whichever of those 50+ software developers will emerge as the market leaders.
Digital identity in the UK
Once upon a time, the government had a digital identity tool called Gov.uk Verify that it hoped would become the “gold standard” for identity verification across the private and public sectors. Verify was pretty rubbish, and was finally scrapped in 2023 after spending about a quarter of a billion pounds.
Private sector digital ID firms hated Verify, and its existence deterred investors from putting cash into the market – the slow, oft-delayed roll-out of DIATF didn’t help either. So when the government announced Verify’s successor, One Login, would be developed only for accessing public services, there was much relief among suppliers – and that’s a reason why so many have been willing to spend the money needed to register for DIATF, and why investors have stumped up the funds.
So it’s no surprise that jaws dropped when Kyle stood on stage at the launch of the mobile driving licence (mDL) – part of a new product called Gov.uk Wallet, an app-based document store for all sorts of government paperwork – and walked through a prototype demonstration of using the mDL for age verification when shopping online, and explained how it would allow people to prove their age in-store when buying alcohol.
It was telling that when Computer Weekly asked whether DSIT had considered the implications of competing with DIATF-registered private sector suppliers in this way, the official spokesperson had a pre-prepared statement ready to read out in response, which said:
“We recognise the important interface with the private sector for some government documents and the importance of user choice. And we’ll be engaging with industry further to understand options to ensure that Gov.uk Wallet works for both businesses and citizens. There are technical, legal and regulatory changes to consider and we’re exploring all the options.”
In other words, DSIT knows this is a problem and hasn’t worked out what to do about it. Most likely, the DVLA is wary of letting the private sector anywhere near a digital driving licence.
But it’s not only journalists picking up on the issue. A Labour backbencher, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, submitted a parliamentary question to DSIT asking “whether driving licences available through the Gov.uk app will have integration with (a) Apple Wallet, (b) Google Wallet, (c) Samsung Wallet and (d) other common on-device wallets.”
In response, minister for AI and digital government Feryal Clark wrote, “We recognise there may be value in government documents, such as the digital driving licence, being available through private sector wallets that have been certified as part of the government’s Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework. There are no current plans but we are open to exploring this in the future. Currently, Apple, Google and Samsung Wallets are not certified, but may choose to become so in the future.”
In other words – well, you don’t even need to read between the lines this time: “There are no current plans”.
Some app suppliers are looking on the bright side. Robin Tombs, CEO of Yoti, a company that has specifically focused and heavily invested in digital age verification, says that a government app can only give a boost for the concept and that will benefit suppliers. “Yoti is excited that many millions of citizens will now be able to choose to prove age or ID with either the Gov.uk wallet or an alternative government-certified reusable digital ID wallet such as Yoti,” he said.
Others are very much less positive. Richard Oliphant is an independent legal consultant on digital identity who has advised organisations such as Docusign, Adobe, HM Land Registry, Digidentity and OneID. He wrote on LinkedIn, “I could write a very long screed about why this is bad policy, unethical, anti-competitive, and will stymie innovation… A digital driving licence must be made available to the DIATF-certified wallets at the same time as the government wallet. Digital transformation is positive, but not if government is creating a monopoly for its own wallet and shutting out competition, innovation under the DIATF.”
Another supplier, which asked to remain anonymous, told Computer Weekly that DSIT has stabbed its private sector partners in the back.
No suppliers want to be seen to publicly criticise DSIT, but behind the scenes there is much anger over the digital driving licence launch.
Cultural dislike
The UK is behind much of the world – and especially European countries – when it comes to digital identity. The long, painful and expensive story of Gov.uk Verify is one reason for that. Our cultural dislike of identity cards is another – the first question asked by mainstream press is always something along the lines of whether government digital identity is simply “identity cards by stealth”.
The UK’s biggest advocate of digital identity is former prime minister Tony Blair – responsible when in power for an identity card plan that proved to be a vote-winner for the Conservatives, who promised to immediately scrap it, which they did after forming the 2010 Coalition government.
Blair is rumoured to be pressuring Labour to expand its digital identity programme, and working with sympathetic MPs to encourage the concept of a single, government digital ID. Sadly for the ex-PM, his involvement is only likely to provoke further scepticism and negativity towards the idea.
Any suggestion that Blair’s lobbying could be successful, however, will further alienate the private sector companies that have been encouraged over a decade to invest in creating a competitive digital identity market in the UK.
Kyle’s announcement of the digital driving licence as a government-backed app for age and identity verification is not going to alleviate any of those fears.
Nonetheless, Kyle’s proposals are probably the most positive move in digital identity the government has yet made. Why would you not use a secure mobile driving licence, in a government-backed app, rather than some previously unheard of app from a company you don’t know?
DSIT’s next steps could determine the future of digital ID in the UK.