Yoti is trying to convince the British public to stop carrying their driver’s licenses in day-to-day situations. To that end, the company has highlighted the utility of the new PASS card, which is a product of its collaboration with the UK Post Office.
So why should citizens turn away from documents they’ve been using for most of their lives? According to Yoti, more conventional identity documents like passports and driver’s licenses have a couple of key disadvantages. The first is that those documents are expensive. In the UK, a driver’s license costs £34 while a passport costs a full £75.50, saddling people with a not-insignificant financial penalty whenever those documents need to be replaced.
That cost also makes those documents ill-suited to day-to-day use. As it stands, 1 million UK driver’s licenses and 400,000 passports are lost, stolen, or damaged on an annual basis. People who take those IDs with them whenever they leave the house (as most British citizens do) are increasing the amount of wear and tear on those documents, and increasing the chances of those documents going missing.
The other problem is that driver’s licenses and passports contain information that is not needed to complete everyday transactions. Most people only carry an ID for proof of age, but fraudsters will have access to a wealth of additional details if they obtain someone’s ID.
The Post Office PASS card, on the other hand, was designed to solve both problems. The card only costs £15 (and £12 for a renewal), and only displays the holder’s name and date of birth (alongside a photo). That makes them a much more convenient identity option and reduces risk in stores, at movie theaters, and even when applying for a job.
The PASS cards are issued by CitizenCard, which has been working with Yoti since 2018. They are recognized by the UK government and most major retailers, and have a hologram and a UV mark from the Home Office to indicate that they are compliant with the Proof of Age Standards Scheme (PASS), as well as a QR code that can be scanned to confirm their authenticity.
Citizens who receive a PASS card can also use it to create a digital identity through the Yoti app or the Post Office’s Yoti-powered EasyID app, which debuted in August. People can use either app to scan their physical PASS card, and that will generate a reusable digital ID that can be stored on a smartphone and presented as valid proof of ID in real-world and online settings.
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