The UK Government has published guidance for suppliers of digital identity and attributes services on how they will be able to use the GOV.UK Wallet.
The document has been produced by the Government Digital Service (GDS) and Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (ODIA) in advance of the wallet being made available later this year.
It is being developed as a core feature of the Blueprint for modern digital government and will make it possible to store government issued documents on a smartphone and app and be used for identity verification.
The guidance makes the point that any verification services will first need to be certified against the UK Digital Identities and Attributes Trust Framework and added to the register.
Proving identities
Service providers can then use the wallet to prove identities for their own purposes with the information it provides, including creating a new reusable digital identity document.
They can also support users of their services by providing information from the wallet to another service to prove an attribute such as age.
Only government documents can be saved in the wallet, and there will be no record of where and why they have been used.
GDS and ODIA have also published technical documentation to support service providers. It includes guidance on issuing and the functions of credentials, key management, and consuming and verifying credentials in the wallet. They said they will provide more information in the coming months.
In March the Ministry of Defence indicated that the Digital Veteran Card will be the first credential to be stored on the tool.
