Digital Identification Protocol

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are not planning to reinvent anything. We will continue to run the Verify system, plan for its retirement and the offboarding of services, while working closely with departments, including my own, to develop a viable long-term digital identity solution for all government, which will be called “One Login for Government”.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Holmes on his persistence on this important subject. Does the Minister agree that we have to introduce a unified digital ID protocol for many reasons, not least the IT benefits for people’s well-being, which will require building equal digital opportunities, widespread digital literacy and strong digital security? For this to succeed, the Government need to introduce their own digital ID protocol as soon as possible and use that opportunity to consider launching further widespread digital literacy education campaigns.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for highlighting another opportunity for digital ID. The Government are committed to realising the benefits of these technologies, albeit without creating ID cards. My honourable friend the Minister for Digital Infrastructure and the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office are working closely together, as both the trust framework and the single sign-on system for government are needed, so that users can control their data in line with the principles that we published in our response to the 2019 call for evidence.