The UK's private digital identity market gets a trust mark and a machine-readable register
Five providers can now display the UK CertifID mark, and the government is testing a register that software can check automatically.
The UK's trust mark for certified digital identity providers is now live. Orchestrating Identity, TrustID, CDD Services, Mistho and GBG are the first five providers certified against version 1.0 of the digital verification services trust framework and allowed to use the UK CertifID mark.
The mark "will give eligible services a clear and consistent way to show their registered status" on the government register, according to the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes, which oversees the framework.
A register machines can read
The same office is now inviting providers to test a machine-readable version of the register, which will replace the current web list so that checks can be automated at scale. Onboarding tests start in October.
Two models will be tested. In the API model, a public authority asked to validate someone's data first confirms that the requesting provider is registered, using X.509 certificates and OpenID Federation. In the credential model, digital wallets check that a reader service is a registered verifier, using certificate lists defined in the ISO/IEC 18013-5 standard. People start a check by showing a QR code or tapping their phone.
A market instead of a national card
The government dropped its plan for a mandatory national digital identity, but the regulated private market keeps growing. Since September pubs and shops can accept certified digital identity as proof of age for alcohol, and GOV.UK Wallet is developing a digital driving licence.
Max Elphick, head of digital identity at the trade body techUK, wrote in Computer Weekly that adoption "will not come from a single, mandated government credential" but from "a competitive market of trusted providers", and called for a roadmap built around high-volume uses. The trust mark and the register are the plumbing such a market needs: a way for people to see who is certified, and for systems to check it without a human in the loop.
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