Digital Identity is a fast-moving issue in regulated industries right now. Due to the pandemic, it’s also been raised in issues such as vaccine passports as well as more common identity concerns such as proof of age or DBS checking. But what do we mean when we’re talking about Digital Identity?
What is Digital Identity?
Digital Identity is often used to refer to any digital information that can be traced back to an individual. Often this information is online, scattered across numerous websites and lacks strong verification checks.
But Digital Identity is so much more than a digital footprint. We’re proposing a radical reinterpretation of Digital Identity in HooYu ID – a consumer-owned, portable and reusable digital wallet that securely stores identity information, evidence and attributes. Essentially, the digitalisation of an individual’s identity from physical identity documents such as passports into a secure app on a consumer’s phone.
Growing use of Digital Identity wallets allows for an entirely new approach to identity and customer onboarding through electronic KYC – enhancing data privacy for consumers. Using a wallet in this way would allow consumers to share that they are over the age of 18 for age-restricted products without needing to give away specific details like date of birth or show a paper document to each new company that they want to transact with. From a compliance perspective, businesses only need to know that a consumer is over 18, not the exact age. Digital wallets therefore promote zero-knowledge trust and place consumers as the custodians of their own identity.
Building trust in Digital Identity
Digital Identity faces one significant blocker in reaching mass adoption. Trust. Years of disinformation and bad behaviour by major technology companies has led to both a culture of fear around data and fierce opinions on the sanctity and privacy of personal data and PII.
HooYu ID overcomes this in five key ways:
- No-one, not even HooYu, has access to the data other than the app user themselves.
- All personal information will be kept secure via private key encryption.
- Only relevant data requested will ever be shared.
- The app user must consent to any personal information which is requested to be shared.
- The HooYu ID will be verified to specific confidence levels determined by GPG45 which set out UK government levels of assurance.
Consumers will develop trust in the HooYu ID because it is designed with data privacy in mind and their details are held securely. Not all digital wallets will have these features but these five features of the HooYu ID are crucial to building customer trust in our Digital Identity wallet.
How to build momentum?
There is one significant problem at the heart of Digital Identity, how do you encourage customer adoption while businesses are slow to embrace change. And the reverse is also true. It’s a challenge that seems almost paradoxical at first glance, businesses are going to be reluctant to offer customer services specific to Digital Identity if there is low customer adoption after all. This is where UK government’s digital identity trust framework comes into play. Through the government’s policy, businesses and customers are buying into a trusted concept which will give rise to value.
Digital wallets are already commonplace for holding payment details and digital tickets for travel and events, their current popularity will make adoption easier and improve current digital journeys that consumers are used to. Now, using HooYu ID, consumers will be able to assert their identity attributes by sharing selected personal information which they choose to disclose using a Digital Identity wallet.
Governments across the world are now building regulation and standards for digital identity which in turn will help businesses trust in identity service provider platforms such as the HooYu ID. Accepting this technology will improve the speed of physical customer journeys, reduce customer onboarding drop-off rates and improve the serviceability of many business sectors.
Sector Focus for Digital Identity
The potential for Digital Identity is tremendous. We have identified six broad business segments that we will be positioning HooYu ID to over the next 12 months but there are doubtless many more areas that will benefit from digital identity.
These sectors are:
- Government services
- Banking and regulated businesses
- Healthcare
- Education
- Sharing economy
- Age verification
The UK government is pursuing Digital Identity for more efficient government services. Several business sectors are showing accelerated progression with regards to the Digital Identity space. As Digital Identity adoption, regulation, and standards improve and develop, we expect this to expand to further markets both domestically and further afield.
The issue of proving age online has been difficult since the inception of the internet and often requires financial information that some may not be willing to provide or may be locked out from due to being financially excluded. But with HooYu ID, accessing age-restricted online services and content, purchasing age-restricted goods online and in-store, and accessing age-appropriate social media is all made simpler with the appropriate control in place.
HooYu ID will focus on key areas around remote electronic KYC issues. This means that the product will have associated identity data services along with the orchestration capabilities embedded in the HooYu platform, a rules engine and risk assessment capability, and credentials management capability to relay necessary identity attribute information.
But these are far from the limits of digital identity. New features will be integrated into digital wallets on an ongoing basis as adoption increases and trust in the technology builds until it’s as commonplace as contactless payments is today.
