Identity Assurance In Public Beta From October

The government has revealed its new GOV.UK Verify service, a new tool for online identity assurance, will move into public beta in October.

The service aims to replace face-to-face and postal methods of verifying people’s identity, allowing the process to be carried out entirely online.

Once it enters the public beta phase, users using services connected to GOV.UK Verify will be able to allow users to access them with the requirement of an individual invitation.

The programme has been in private beta since February this year for HMRC’s PAYE for employees service, the new DVLA View Driving Licence Service and the Department for Environmental and Rural Affairs (Defra) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Information Service.

User Feedback Leads To “Improvements”

These services have all been testing identity assurance with a small number of invited users.

“We’ve continued our user research programme and continued to refine and develop the service based on what we’ve learned in the lab and from larger-scale quantitative testing,” claims Janet Hughes, head of policy and engagement for the Identity Assurance Programme, in a recent government blog post.

“We’ve learned a lot and changed quite a few things along the way, including our name and the design of the user interface,” she adds.

According to the post, the user research revealed that GOV.UK Verify works better than alternative name suggestions for the service because it clearly tells people what to expect when using the service.

Earlier this month, the Government Digital Service (GDS) called for more suppliers interested in becoming identity providers (IDPs) for the new service.

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