Andrea Di MaioToday I read one of those news I have been waiting for for a long time. According to The Independent:
The [UK] Government will announce details this month of a controversial national identity scheme which will allow people to use their mobile phones and social media profiles as official identification documents for accessing public services. People wishing to apply for services ranging from tax credits to fishing licences and passports will be asked to choose from a list of familiar online log-ins, including those they already use on social media sites, banks, and large retailers such as supermarkets, to prove their identity.
This builds on work done by the UK Cabinet office around an Identity Assurance Scheme, launched last year.
The new UK government portal Gov.uk will be used to pilot this scheme. Always according to The Independent
The Cabinet Office is understood to have held discussions with the Post Office, high street banks, mobile phone companies and technology giants ranging from Facebook and Microsoft to Google, PayPal and BT.
Some may interpret this as a way to sneak the defunct identity card scheme through the back door, but the Cabinet office assures that data would not be kept centrally.
This may be yet another nail in the coffin of government-issued electronic identities. While countries like Italy keep pursuing this path and have gone as far as issuing specifications for email services to be used when interacting with government, the UK shows that there is much better way, which is to rely on identities that people already use much more frequently on their social sites, with their banks or on their mobile devices.
But this is just part of a broader trend. If governments can accept not to be the issuers or providers but rather the users of somebody else’s electronic identities, then the same may apply to data, services and channels. So while in the near future the UK government will experiment how to access its information and services in Gov.uk using – say – a Facebook or a Google or a Barclays account, the next step might be for people not to use Gov.uk at all to access those services, but expect them to be delivered through Facebook or Google or Barclays.
Category: Europe and IT web 2.0 in government Tags: government 2.0, ID card
6 responses so far ↓
1 UK Government’s Bold Move on Digital Identity Is… « Kind of Digital Exchange October 4, 2012 at 1:18 pm
[...] UK Government’s Bold Move on Digital Identity Is…UK Government’s Bold Move on Digital Identity Is A Wake-Up Call for Many [...]
2 Italy’s Digital Strategy: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back October 5, 2012 at 3:18 am
[...] Andrea Di Maio is a vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research, where he focuses on the public sector, with particular reference to e-government strategies, Web 2.0, the business value of IT, open-source software… Read Full Bio Coverage Areas: ← UK Government’s Bold Move on Digital Identity Is A Wake-Up Call for Many [...]
3 Italy’s Digital Strategy: Two Steps Forward, One Steps Back October 5, 2012 at 3:19 am
[...] Andrea Di Maio is a vice president and distinguished analyst in Gartner Research, where he focuses on the public sector, with particular reference to e-government strategies, Web 2.0, the business value of IT, open-source software… Read Full Bio Coverage Areas: ← UK Government’s Bold Move on Digital Identity Is A Wake-Up Call for Many [...]
4 Tofa IT » Italy’s Digital Strategy: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back October 5, 2012 at 8:31 am
[...] the UK government announces an innovative and pragmatic approach to identity management, relying on assuring non-government identities – such as those issues by banks, mobile operators [...]
5 Government-issued ID cards for UK citizens might have gone away but the Government sees digital identities from the private sector as the next best thing. « Family Survival Protocol October 7, 2012 at 1:18 am
[...] UK Government’s Bold Move on Digital Identity Is A Wake-Up Call for Many (blogs.gartner.com) [...]
6 Why Government Should Care Less About Open data and More About Data October 22, 2012 at 12:03 pm
[...] space, and smaller players like MyDex and QIY Foundation still at a pilot stage. On the other hand, the recent move by the UK government to consider the assurance of identity credential issued by multiple players opens the door to those [...]