UK.gov Verify system misses yet another user signup target

The government's much-delayed online identity scheme Verify has failed to meet even half its target to sign 700,000 users by November, according to the latest stats. In a blog post, the Government Digital Service said so far more than 300,000 user identities have been verified by the scheme – but as recently as July it had …

[Ben Tasker]

Hmmmm, I'm on SA and didn't know they'd rolled Verify out for logging into HMRC. Not that I'd have considered using it, but either it's not been communicated or I've missed something.

The benefit it would bring, as far as I can make out, is that you get to hand details over to a third-party, and then rely on them scraping the net to "verify" your digital footprint, rather than having to remember a username and password to log in.

[Anonymous Coward]

"then rely on them scraping the net to "verify" your digital footprint"

So they rely on what the internet says about you to verify your identity. Amazing. Where could that possibly go wrong?

[Steve 114]

Mystery

Just helped 3 people register for SA electronically. Needs 2 letters by post to your home, or 3 if you don't have a UTR, so takes weeks (albeit probably justified by security, not complaining!). We didn't 'shun' any newer system, we just didn't see it. Should I update them? How?

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: Mystery

Verify is not Cyber, its Digital - much better.

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried this...

...with each of the different providers and each failed. There was no mention of whether the failure was because these things are in 'beta' or because my ID records were somehow mismatched; or a core system was down; or they were doing work on it. I've been at the same address for years; had my driving licence ID, passport details etc.

In fact, none of them followed up on my attempted registration.

I did feel at points like I was pumping very personal data in to a number of untrustworthy sites. All seemed a little amateurish!

Would be great to hear if anyone else had anything similar.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I tried this...

Yep, I tried the other week as I wanted to start a tax rebate I'm owed. All three providers could not find my address.

I got this from Digidentity

"

Your request (#Unable to verify for full account) has been marked as resolved.

Should you have additional questions, you can reopen this request, by simply replying to this email.

Dear Mr. ,

Thank you for your patience while we looked into your account.

With the sources available to us we cannot access a sufficient amount of information to verify your identity for a full identity account. For security reasons, Digidentity agents cannot see or provide any specific information, although the amount of information available in your credit file can affect the verification process, please note that this is not in reference to your credit rating.

As registration for a full account can not be completed with Digidentity, I recommend that you contact the needed government service directly by phone or post.

Kind regards,

Customer Service

"

Thing is, I used to have a government gateway ID. I'm on the electoral roll (both versions) all my bills get to me. Even Parcel Farce are able to get a packages to me!

Why could the old GatewayID data not be migrated over?

"With the sources available to us" What exactly are they verifying data against? If I knew that maybe I could get to the crux of the problem.

I'm sure they used lots of tried and tested project management techniques to get this running. But I get the sinking feeling that they forgot about the 'testing' stage.

Also, I've worked on/along-side many IT helpdesk. That ticket is not 'Resolved'