Long-term vision for digital identity: rebuilding trust and unlocking the real economy.
*Please note that these thought leadership pieces represent the views of the contributing companies and do not necessarily reflect techUK’s own position.
Digital identity in the UK currently stands at an inflection point. Private sector companies have spent the past decade building services, developing protocols, refining commercial models and discovering product-market fit. However, public sentiment remains uncertain and, in some quarters at least, oppositional to the technology. To many citizens the term “Digital ID” evokes privacy concerns, the threat of data breaches and permanent exclusion from the day-to-day services which they rely upon. Perhaps now is the time to reimagine a better future, not just a more efficient version of the present.
Over the next 5–10 years, digital identity must evolve from the early steps taken so far into a genuine utility. It must be designed to open standards, federated and focussed on value to the citizen and relying party. Achieving these demands reframing the narrative around why identity matters, not as a compliance burden but as infrastructure for economic participation.
Building a trustworthy framework
The UK’s legislative scaffolding is very much out of sync with the realities of the new digital age. Despite the existence of various circulating practice guidances today, over the next decade the UK must move towards statutory recognition of digital identity as a legitimate means of proving who we are. Digital IDs should have regulatory equivalence to government-issued documents like passports and driving licenses. This regulatory equivalence is necessary to shape the trust agenda and general acceptance of Digital IDs across the economy.
With the appropriate statutory recognition of Digital IDs, businesses are then able to determine that a presenting customer is acceptable in accordance with its own risk appetite and beyond reproach. Furthermore, this approach is likely to yield a smoother and faster adoption curve and avoids take up in fits and starts which would otherwise force fragmented utility over a longer time stretch with separate use cases predicated on commercial appetite and legal risk, rather than public confidence.
If we want citizens to trust a Digital ID, its value must be codified and not implied or left to the assumption of relying businesses.
Orchestration: the silent infrastructure
The next decade won’t be about the ascension of “one ID to rule them all.” There will be a choice of ID and wallet providers in the market. As a result identity orchestration will begin to play a bigger role in the early-stage development of Digital ID networks. Orchestration provides for intelligent routing and the access to multiple, verified attributes from and across different contexts.
Eventually orchestration technologies will abstract the complexity of assurance, compliance, and policy from relying parties. Imagine a world where a digital wallet doesn’t just store credentials but is able to assert, in real time, which verified attributes to present based on relying party policy, transaction risk, regulatory requirements and even user preference.
To achieve this, policy-driven orchestration engines will become prevalent mainstream technologies which operate as programmable trust agents for relying parties, accessing the best of government datasets and privately issued credentials, all under the user’s control. This is perhaps where the next big wave of identity innovation will emerge.
Think of orchestration technology as a digital trust layer which underpins any system which requires attribute assertion – automated, algorithmic and context-aware.
Data minimisation and privacy
The most powerful way to build public confidence with Digital IDs is to prove that it will minimise the amount of data that people will share about themselves. Ethical digital identity is about selective disclosure whereby only specific credentials required for a purpose is required. This serves to reduce the amount of personal information that is required to be shared because the credential can be cryptographically verified in real-time as genuine, valid and linked to the individual.
With these verifiable credentials, users can exchange digitally signed proofs without revealing unnecessary personal data. This also creates a new sustainable commercial model whereby credential issuers charge relying parties for validation when the credential is being used to check someone’s status or eligibility whilst users will enjoy low friction privacy.
Such data-minimised exchange transposes an identity into a trusted, self-contained asset. Privacy is not just a by-product of digital identity, it is a foundation. Tracking is disabled, no silent lookups, no central observer, just mathematically verified truth, moving people around securely online at the speed of consent. The next generation of identity systems should ensure that personal data is encrypted and never exposed or shared beyond what the individual choose to reveal about themselves.
OpenID Connect: the backbone of interoperability
At the protocol layer, OpenID Connect (OIDC) will continue to anchor interoperability across sectors and jurisdictions. The OIDC family, especially the emerging profiles like OpenID for Verifiable Credentials (OIDC4VC) and Financial-grade API (FAPI), provides a globally recognised, privacy-aware framework for secure token exchange. In addition Open ID for Identity Assurance (OID4IDA) defines how verified data and metadata about the assurance process is shared in a consistent interoperable way.
Over the next decade, OIDC should become the unifying language of identity ecosystems, bridging federated login, digital wallets, and verifiable credential issuance.
But to fulfil that role, technologists must ensure OIDC continues to be implementation-friendly and remains capable of supporting both centralised (government or bank-issued) and decentralised (wallet-based) models.
OIDC’s ascension is not only based on the versatility of its syntax but in its current extensive use across data sharing systems as an identity layer built on top of OAuth 2.0. Simply put is has become the JSON grammar of trust!
Societal benefit as the catalyst for adoption
There has not been a clearly articulated vision for broader adoption of Digital IDs in the UK and it therefore currently resonates neither emotionally or practically with the British public. So how can we catalyse adoption:
Convenience: the ability for individuals to prove identity once and reuse it increasingly everywhere whilst controlling what is shared.
Fraud reduction: deployed within digital banking journeys will demonstrably neutralise most scams, prevent account takeovers and mis-selling.
Inclusivity: turning Digital ID into an inclusion tool enabling access to housing, health, and benefits for people who lack paperwork.
Trust indexing: citizens can earn “trust points” as cryptographic attestations of reliability the more they use their Digital IDs.
The long-term vision for digital identity is not about creating a single Digital ID to solve all problems, it’s about choice and creating trusted digital agency on behalf of citizens so they may act, transact and interact online with the same confidence that they can offline. If done well, digital identity could do for the 2030s what broadband did for the 2000s: enabling a new layer of social and commercial innovation that benefits society at large.
Author
Gareth Narinesingh
Market Development Director, Select ID
Digital Identity programme activities
Digital identities will provide a gateway for citizens and SMEs into the digital economy. techUK members demonstrate the benefits of digital identity to emerging markets, raise their profile as thought leaders, influence policy outcomes, and strengthen their relationships with potential clients and decision-makers. Visit the programme page here.
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Sue leads techUK's Technology and Innovation work.
This includes work programmes on cloud, data protection, data analytics, AI, digital ethics, Digital Identity and Internet of Things as well as emerging and transformative technologies and innovation policy.
In 2025, Sue was honoured with an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the Technology Industry in the New Year Honours List.
She has been recognised as one of the most influential people in UK tech by Computer Weekly's UKtech50 Longlist and in 2021 was inducted into the Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in UK Tech Hall of Fame.
A key influencer in driving forward the data agenda in the UK, Sue was co-chair of the UK government's National Data Strategy Forum until July 2024. As well as being recognised in the UK's Big Data 100 and the Global Top 100 Data Visionaries for 2020 Sue has also been shortlisted for the Milton Keynes Women Leaders Awards and was a judge for the Loebner Prize in AI. In addition to being a regular industry speaker on issues including AI ethics, data protection and cyber security, Sue was recently a judge for the UK Tech 50 and is a regular judge of the annual UK Cloud Awards.
Prior to joining techUK in January 2015 Sue was responsible for Symantec's Government Relations in the UK and Ireland. She has spoken at events including the UK-China Internet Forum in Beijing, UN IGF and European RSA on issues ranging from data usage and privacy, cloud computing and online child safety. Before joining Symantec, Sue was senior policy advisor at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Sue has an BA degree on History and American Studies from Leeds University and a Masters Degree on International Relations and Diplomacy from the University of Birmingham. Sue is a keen sportswoman and in 2016 achieved a lifelong ambition to swim the English Channel.
Associate Director - Technology and Innovation, techUK
Laura Foster
Associate Director - Technology and Innovation, techUK
Laura is techUK’s Associate Director for Technology and Innovation.
Laura advocates for better emerging technology policy in the UK, including quantum, future of compute technologies, semiconductors, digital ID and more. Working alongside techUK members and UK Government she champions long-term, cohesive, and sustainable investment that will ensure the UK can commercialise future science and technology research. Laura leads a high-performing team at techUK, as well as publishing several reports on these topics herself, and being a regular speaker at events.
Before joining techUK, Laura worked internationally as a conference researcher and producer exploring adoption of emerging technologies. This included being part of the team at London Tech Week.
Laura has a degree in History (BA Hons) from Durham University and is a Cambridge Policy Fellow. Outside of work she loves reading, writing and supporting rugby team St. Helens, where she is from.
Elis joined techUK in December 2023 as a Programme Manager for Tech and Innovation, focusing on Semiconductors and Digital ID.
He previously worked at an advocacy group for tech startups, with a regional focus on Wales. This involved policy research on innovation, skills and access to finance.
Elis has a Degree in History, and a Masters in Politics and International Relations from the University of Winchester, with a focus on the digitalisation and gamification of armed conflicts.
