Digital ID oversight has moved to the Cabinet Office, giving the humble business of proving you exist the sort of constitutional attention usually reserved for a crisis involving flags, biscuits and somebody’s resignation.
The government announced on 23 October that the Cabinet Office would take overall responsibility for the new digital identity scheme, including policy, legislation and strategic oversight. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will handle its technical design, construction and delivery. At last, the nation’s identity can be managed by two departments instead of merely being lost between them.
The change makes digital identity a cross government priority. Several departments can now agree that a person is a person through one coordinated process involving separate calendars, incompatible logins and a meeting called “Digital ID: Next Steps”. The meeting has already produced a helpful diagram of a key, although nobody can say which department has authority to turn it.
At the fictional Office of Verified Existence, director Mavis Login laughed beside a password displayed beneath a glass case. “People deserve control,” she said. “Control will now be provided through a steering group, a delivery board and an emergency subcommittee for forgotten PINs.” The password was not available for comment because it had been referred to policy.
The Cabinet Office will develop policy and legislation while the science department builds the technical system. This division of labour allows the state to modernise in two perfectly aligned halves. One half can explain what the system means. The other can explain why the blue button has stopped responding.
The government says digital identity should make public services more convenient and give people greater control over their information. Bureaucrat Ludo Keyring laughed beside a printer labelled “secure” and called this a breakthrough. “For years, citizens have had to prove the same fact repeatedly,” he said. “Now they can prove it repeatedly through one joined up portal.”
The scheme may eventually reduce the need to establish who you are every time you use a public service. Until then, users can expect a reassuring sequence of confirmations. Your identity has been received. Your identity is being reviewed. Your identity has been asked to contact another department.
Strategic oversight will give the digital identity direction. Technical expertise will give it infrastructure. Between them, the citizen should receive a modern state, a single sign on and six emails asking which email address they used. The password has finally achieved what most citizens only dream of. It has become important enough to be unable to speak to anyone directly.
Real story: UK Government.
