For the person opening a betting account or applying for a loan this week, nothing about the sign-up screen has changed. They confirm who they are, a check clears in seconds, and they carry on. Burnham’s digital ID decision, reported in the week of 20 July 2026, scrapped the plan for a universal government-backed identity card. It did not touch the reason your customers verify in the first place, or the certified route that lets them do it from their phone.
The obligation to check a customer’s identity and age sits in your sector rules and in the Money Laundering Regulations, not in any single government credential. Those rules are where they were a month ago.
Andy Burnham, forming a government that week, moved to scrap the proposed universal government-backed digital ID scheme. The programme had been announced in September 2025. Its mandatory-to-hold element was already gone, dropped in a Commons statement on 15 January 2026 after a petition against digital ID cards reached nearly three million signatures.
What ended was a single state-issued credential and the central-database model behind it. That is a separate question from what Burnham’s digital ID decision changes across the rest of digital government, where several programmes carry on. For the businesses that onboard customers, the more useful point is what stayed exactly as it was.
No government card was ever going to run your onboarding. Regulated firms have to know who they are dealing with because their own rules require it, and those rules do not depend on a citizen holding a state ID.
A gambling operator confirms a player’s age and identity before play. Lenders, and crypto or fintech firms under anti-money-laundering supervision, verify every customer they take on for the same reason. Scrapping the universal card takes away an option some people might have carried. The legal duty to verify comes from sector rules and anti-money-laundering law, and it is untouched by the decision.
The market that would have sat around any government card was live before this week. As at the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes 2026 annual report, the public GOV.UK register of digital verification services listed 46 registered providers offering 64 certified services. The wider sector runs to an estimated 275 firms.
It has a statutory footing. Part 2 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 sits under it, and the trust framework and register are maintained by the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes within DSIT. Certification is independent, and every certified service is named on a register anyone can read.
The design answers the concern that drove the petition. There is no central register of people. A certified provider confirms one fact from a source the person already holds. The person chooses what they share, and the underlying data stays where it sits. A check happens, and no file of citizens is built behind it.
For firms under the Money Laundering Regulations, the reassurance is already written down. On 26 February 2026, HM Treasury and DSIT published guidance confirming that certified, registered digital identity services can satisfy the identity-verification requirement in Regulation 28. The regulated firm keeps risk assessment, customer due diligence and overall AML responsibility. The identity-checking step within that can be met by a provider on the register.
This is where a certified provider earns its place. OneID is certified under the government’s Digital Verification Services Trust Framework and listed on the public GOV.UK register. It was used by 13 million people in the past year. For the customer, that means confirming who they are with a tap and a result that returns in seconds, backed by an audit-ready record of the check for the firm that relied on it.
Compliant onboarding does not wait for any new government product. A customer can prove identity in the UK without a national ID card right now, from a credential already on their phone. For many people that means confirming the fact you need without posting copies of documents or re-keying the same details, and clearing in seconds rather than minutes.
Whatever happens next in Westminster, the practical steps do not change.
AML-regulated teams weighing a change can start with a low-effort test, running real cases before touching the live flow. OneID will compare 1,000 of your records free against your current provider, showing how many of your customers clear, and how fast, on your own data rather than a demo.
Burnham’s digital ID decision reshaped what the government itself offers. For a regulated business, the way to prove who a customer is still runs through the certified providers on the GOV.UK register, the same route that was there last month and is already in your customers’ pockets.
Has the duty to verify customers changed after Burnham’s digital ID decision? No. The obligation to check a customer’s identity and age comes from sector rules and, for many firms, the Money Laundering Regulations. Scrapping the proposed universal government-backed ID card does not change any of those requirements.
Can a certified digital identity meet the Money Laundering Regulations? Guidance published by HM Treasury and DSIT on 26 February 2026 confirms that certified, registered digital identity services can satisfy the identity-verification requirement in Regulation 28. The firm still keeps its risk assessment, customer due diligence and overall AML responsibility.
Is there now a central government database of everyone’s identity? No. Verification on the GOV.UK register works through certified providers that confirm a single fact from a source the person already holds. The person chooses what they share, and the data stays where it sits. No central register of people is created.