Government bids final goodbye to Gov.uk Verify

Cabinet Office parliamentary secretary Julia Lopez has confirmed the government is scrapping its flagship digital identity programme Gov.uk Verify for good.

In a speech to the Investing and Saving Alliance (TISA), Lopez said that the government is ready to move on from the identity platform.

“While the best elements of Verify will be reused where appropriate, all parties are keen to move on from Verify’s over-elaborate expectations trajectory and cost,” she said.

The £175m Gov.uk Verify programme was originally launched in 2013, and in 2016, the government announced plans to have 25 million users of Verify by 2020, with every department using the system.

However, in early 2017, HMRC was the first to break ranks, and today its Government Gateway system has about 16 million users, compared with less than half that number registered with Verify.

Funding for the programme was originally due to end in April 2020, but due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, the treasury decided to extend funding for a further 18 months.

As previously reported by Computer Weekly, the government is now making another attempt to create a common digital identity system to be used across all online public services, mandating that departments comply.

In February 2021, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove wrote to departments, saying that “all public-facing central government services” would have to migrate onto the new digital identity system”, and that all legacy systems will be phased out.

Lopez said that the government is working on a “discrete digital identity pilot project”, which will create the proof of concept for a new digital identity service for government.

“This will be led and coordinated by the Government Digital Service (GDS), co-designed with Whitehall departments and public services, and be largely government-built and government-owned. Initially, it will connect only to a small number of services but will have the capability to grow rapidly once the scheme is judged to be on track,” she said.

“Our overall goal for digital identity is to develop a successor both to Verify and, in time, other digital identity systems that are currently used across government.

“Good progress on our pilot is expected in coming months, with joint discovery work due to accelerate further.”

TISA, the organisation Lopez delivered her speech to, has been leading work on digital identity for the financial services industry. The organisation has a vision to create a single digital identity that meets regulatory requirements and is “positioned to consumers as the prime means for securely identifying themselves to UK financial services”.