Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what potential providers in the private sector her Department has had discussions with on the GOV.UK Wallet policy.

Since the announcement of the GOV.UK Wallet in January, DSIT has met with providers of digital identity services on multiple occasions. This included events on 14th May and 29th July, the first of which was attended by over 60 representatives from the sector and follow up meetings with individual companies who requested it to discuss technical elements of the GOV.UK Wallet development.

The GOV.UK Wallet is being designed, built and run in-house whilst ​​maintaining​​ a key role for the private sector​, which will provide the data flow between the information in the GOV.UK Wallet, and the organisation (such as a retailer) who needs to check information about the user. Any additional specialist external services may be needed to support delivery and will be subject to the usual competitive processes.