The UK government is to set up an Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (ODIA) and introduce legislation establishing an accreditation process for organisations handling identity data and making digital IDs “as trusted and secure as official documents such as passports and driving licences”.

“The ODIA will have the power to issue an easily recognised trustmark to certified digital identity organisations, to prove they meet the security and privacy standards needed to handle people’s data in a safe and consistent way,” the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) says.

“The ODIA will ensure trust-marked organisations adhere to the highest standards of security and privacy.”

In addition to establishing “a robust secure accreditation and certification process and trustmark”, the government also intends to “create a legal gateway to allow trusted organisations to carry out verification checks against official data held by public bodies to help validate a person’s identity”.

The proposed legislation will also “confirm the legal validity of digital forms of identification are equal to physical forms of identification, such as physical passports”, the DCMS adds.

The government has announced its plans following a public consultation on digital identity and the publication of its digital identity framework in February 2021.

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