A new “gateway” capability will enable private sector access to government data for identity verification. The Office for Digital Identities and Attributes announced the minor technical update, which could have easily gone under the radar, but ComputerWeekly reported it earlier this week.
The power is granted in Section 45 of the Data Use and Access Act 2025 to allow secure sharing of information held by public authorities with digital verification service providers recognised by the UK trust framework. Legitimating the use of eligible verification services within the industry; the public framework sets out good standards for digital identity, as the government secures contracts for digital identity solutions with private sector providers.
The individual to whom the data belongs to can request the data. The services allows a lot of public-held identity data to sync up with private digital verification service, allowing anyone to digital prove who they are without scanning their physical documents.
The digital process is fully efficient and faster for users as well as complying with the government’s desire to monitor the private array of digital verification services.
Data minimalisation rules apply so services should only request the necessary amount of data to perform an accurate identity verification and public authorities can set up fees for the information.
