A flurry of activity under the United Kingdom’s recently implemented digital identity frameworks suggests that the country’s carefully regulated embrace of such technologies has galvanized this part of the tech sector in Britain.
Near the start of the month, London-based Yoti announced that it would provide identity verification services for Konfir, the first government-certified Attribute Service Provider to provide employee background check services under the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF). Yoti’s identity verification platform revolves around the use of face biometrics, matching end user’s selfie images to their official IDs.
Mitek takes a similar approach in its platform, and just days after Yoti’s announcement, the company revealed that it had partnered with Vetting.com to facilitate background checks in the UK. The effort would be led by the HooYu arm of the company, which was acquired by Mitek last year in a deal valued at about GBP 98 million.
Shortly after that acquisition was announced last year, HooYu was certified by the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as a Digital Identity Service Provider under the Digital Identity Certification Scheme (DICS) framework, meaning it was officially recognized as an organization that could be relied upon to conduct digital identity verification.
This week, another rival in the selfie-based identity verification space, Onfido, announced that it has obtained H1A certification under the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework.
Onfido had itself become certified as a Digital Identity Service Provider in October. Now, its H1A news further attested to the reliability of its platform, H1A being a standard that pertains to solutions offering a high level of confidence in an identity check based on a single piece of evidence (ie. a single identity document).
The rapid pace of these developments from three of the identity industry’s most prominent vendors suggests that authorities in the UK have found the right regulatory approach to fostering digital identity innovation in the country, setting the stage for rapid adoption of new solutions that could help to boost economic activity going forward.
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