Whether Sir Keir Starmer’s re-introduction of Tony Blair’s Digital ID was expected or not, needless to say it may bring forth a new verification process for the UK in years to come.
The Labour Party announced last week during the King’s Speech that it was reviving Digital ID plans under the Digital Information and Smart Data Bill, aiming to establish digital identity products, enabling people to quickly and securely verify their identity when using online services.
Under Blair’s initial plans for the Digital ID during the 2000s, he believed that it would help the country’s security protocols to better tackle illegal immigration whilst offering Brits a seamless way of proving their identity.
However, despite the Conservative Party shelving these plans during its 14-year stay in Parliament, Starmer and his party will be able to seamlessly introduce Digital ID better than before.
This is due to the UK’s leading position in Open Banking, as well as the natural evolution of fraud mitigation systems and technological advancements.
Roger Redfearn-Tyrzyk, VP of Global Gaming at IDnow, told CasinoBeats that the introduction of Digital ID cards may usher in a new era for better onboarding for AML and KYC services.
He said: “If digital ID cards were introduced, this could become a new, possibly even preferred, verification method, depending on how the regulator would choose to deal with this new verification option.”
Along with a more streamlined approach for onboarding verification for various e-commerce merchants and financial institutions, the Digital ID may also be grouped into a digital wallet.
This would provide even further seamlessness as all a user’s personal information and data can be stored into a singular platform without the need for further manual work.
However, despite its potential, Redfearn-Tyrzyk warns the Labour government that embedding the Digital ID to the population may experience some tough growing pains and adoption may not be as widespread as one would think.
He also cautioned the time it may take to develop a Digital ID for each UK citizen and noted that awareness of this concept may have to be taught before adoption can be utilised.
He said: “In the past, many digital ID programmes around the world have struggled with adoption rates due to a lack of public-private partnerships and the associated difficulties in integrating with different government agency identification systems.
“In the UK specifically, because ID cards – and digital ID cards in particular – are a relatively new concept, there is a general lack of awareness of their benefits and therefore a lack of confidence in how they work. This would likely hinder the initial uptake.
“Additionally, consumers, both in the onboarding process and in daily use, have become accustomed to a certain customer experience when using digital solutions. Unless a UK digital identity solution provides a similarly seamless and smooth experience, users may not migrate to the new solution.”
Whilst a relatively new concept to the UK, Digital IDs have been in usage across multiple countries over the past several years.
Within Europe, the likes of Estonia utilises its eID service to enable users to perform a whole host of activities such as payments, host privacy data and much more.
Redfearn-Tyrzyk cited Singapore as another country that has adopted Digital IDs and is seeing a more fruitful way of managing the security process.
He shared: “In Singapore, the digital ID replaces 33 other IDs and is used to prove identity for public and private transactions, including applying for social services, entering government clinics and banking.
“There are hundreds of public and private sector use cases where digital identities could optimise the user experience in a KYC process. For example, account opening in banking, compliance checks in crypto, age verification in mobility, streamlined check-in processes in travel or contract signing in telecommunications.”
Whether the UK can follow in the footsteps of Estonia and Singapore remains to be seen, as these Digital IDs have been in usage for over 20 years. But a UK Digital ID may bring forth a verification so seamless that it may not require any manual process to hurt the user experience anymore.
