OneID's view on Government Digital ID: Protecting What Works and Strengthening the Future

OneID welcomes the renewed public interest in the topic of digital ID, triggered by the proposed national digital ID scheme. We offer our perspective here, grounded in what already works, what must be protected, and how we can build a robust future. The national conversation is important, but the case for digital ID needs to be won with buy-in rather than coercion. The role of government, and the boundaries of where it hands off to the private sector, need to be clear to avoid overreach and privacy concerns.

Our view:

We believe digital ID is a foundation for the public good. It won’t solve every challenge on its own. Still, when designed with privacy and trust at its core, it enables a wide range of secure, inclusive services to be built on top — benefiting individuals, businesses, and society. Suppose the government proceeds with a “Government Digital ID” system. In that case, OneID is ready and willing to participate in a plural, interoperable ecosystem — accepting the new government-issued credential as one valid form of ID evidence among the many that we already use (e.g. ID document, international eID, bank account, telco account). Our priority is ensuring the system is built on principles of trust, choice, security, and leveraging existing capabilities rather than reinventing the wheel.

Key points:

1. Digital identity infrastructure is a national infrastructure and will benefit the country.
   OneID supports framing digital ID as part of the digital public infrastructure fabric — akin to utilities like transportation, electricity, or broadband: necessary for modern government and commerce.
2. A mature UK framework already exists for public and private sector use cases; we don’t start from zero.
   We stress that public discourse often ignores what is already live or in flight: 

• Government access: One Login (Citizen Access Gateway) - Citizens already have a gateway into government services via GOV.UK One Login accounts, which will be ubiquitous by 2027 (before the government digital ID is available). Efficient public access to government services is already being delivered by the One Login programme; messaging around the new digital ID credential should not be conflated with this.
• Digital government: The government has already announced plans to issue digital credentials for driving licences and passports, into a GOV.UK Wallet. The differences and added value of the new ID credential should be explained.
• Immigration management: eVisas (Immigration/identity integration) - As of January 2025, the Home Office has introduced eVisas as part of managing immigration identity credentials.
• Legislation: Data (Use and Access) Act - The passing of the Act earlier this year gave legal credence to Digital Verification Services (DVS). We already have legal UK digital IDs, issued by DVS providers in the private sector.
• Governance: Within DSIT, the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) govern the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF), which sets the rules for digital ID wallets and interoperable credentials.
• A digital ID market: DVS is used in the private sector today. The DVS is already used in ID verification tasks — for example, right-to-work checks — at no direct cost to taxpayers, in a manner that preserves privacy.

The government proposals make no mention of these existing capabilities; the government doesn’t have to start from scratch. The existing foundations can be built upon to minimise the cost of delivery and avoid duplicating existing elements.

The Open Data Institute, in its review of UK identity, describes how past proposals (Blair’s original ID card scheme) failed partly because they disrespected the messy, incremental nature of identity infrastructure in practice.

In short, the UK already has building blocks. Any national scheme must interoperate, not sweep them aside, and more importantly, not ignore the fact that there are already numerous digital ID services in the private sector that the government could mandate for Right to Work at no additional cost to the taxpayer. This could have the same effect on reducing illegal working, and do it far faster than developing a new ID. – The Home Office could change the RTW rules by Christmas to mandate employers to do digital RTW checks with existing services, with DVS reporting the number of checks by company back to the government to enable enforcement against non-compliant employers.

3) OneID® looks forward to accepting the Government Digital ID Card (if enacted) as another valid ID credential.

• If the government’s consultation concludes it will proceed, OneID® is ready to treat the Government Digital ID as one credential among many — interoperable with our wallet, verifiers, and identity flows.
• Our approach is based on opt-in services via an ecosystem of available credentials. Citizens should be able to choose which credential(s) to use to prove their ID.
• We ensure that the technical interfaces are privacy-preserving, trustworthy, standardised, and consumer-friendly, rather than having to “bolt on” services that create friction and put data at risk.

Key considerations for the Government:

• Civil liberties, data protection, and inclusion must be at the forefront. This includes digital exclusion, privacy, redress and appeal mechanisms, audit, and revocation — all of which must be built in, not added as afterthoughts.
• Public narrative and trust matter more than technology. Given the legacy of past ID project failures and public suspicion of “Big Brother” surveillance, the government’s ID scheme should be incremental, opt-in (where possible), citizen-centric, transparent, and secure.
• Guard against narrow advice: Listening to diverse opinions and learning from industry experience can help the Government to win the public argument for digital ID. The influence of think tanks and current political priorities is visible in the current framing of the ID policy. The national ID should be a broader debate to create a mandate for delivery; this would be a permanent, fundamental change to government-citizen relationships, so it should be a strategic approach, not a tactical one. The mandatory nature causes predictable friction in the implementation process. Lessons should be learnt from 2010 to avoid repeating mistakes.
• Build on progress already made: The policy makes no mention of existing infrastructure (e.g., One Login, Data Act, DIATF, DVS providers) that could be leveraged to gain the benefits of digital ID more quickly.
• Open standards enable cross-sector interoperability; the new government ID should align with the existing approach and standards used for other government-issued credentials, such as open standard credentials issued into the GOV.UK Wallet, and shareable from there via private sector DVS for citizens to access non-government services.
• Preserve a role for DVS to service the private sector: As the government states in the blueprint for a modern digital government, the government can’t do everything on its own; working with DVS providers can enable innovation and the extension of ID services into areas the government can’t (or shouldn’t) reach. This helps to assuage privacy concerns about government overreach, protecting citizens' rights to a private life. Using certified DVS services also minimises the risk of data loss.

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About OneID®

OneID® is the only UK Identity Service that uses bank-verified data to create absolute certainty between a business and its customers in a fast, simple, secure and truly digital way.

Along with bank-verified data, we also offer businesses the flexibility to choose from trusted data sources, like mobile network operators, government identity documents, and our own digital identity wallet—depending on the business and compliance needs they have to meet.

OneID®’s real-time verification solutions balance digital ease with the strongest counter-fraud measures. It seamlessly blends into the digital habits of today’s customers, enabling businesses to verify 98% of UK adults with minimal friction and maximum confidence.

In addition to identity verification, OneID® simplifies age verification, Direct Debit setup and customer and employee onboarding. By streamlining these processes, OneID® partners with businesses to implement key regulations like the Online Safety Act, reduce operational costs, improve customer engagement, and drive growth.

OneID® is certified under the UK government's Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF), FCA-regulated, and a B Corp business committed to making the digital world safer. Headquartered in the UK, we’ve brought together experts in Digital Identity, Payments, Banking, Technology, and Government to help businesses build trust and security at scale.