In this blog series, our CEO Robin Tombs will be sharing his experience, whilst focusing on major themes, news and issues in the world of identity verification and age assurance.
This month, Robin talks about the UK’s plan to introduce government-issued digital IDs, his predictions for the UK’s digital ID market, tackling the problem of deepfake porn and online age verification for knife sales.
Initial thoughts about the UK’s rollout of government-issued digital IDs
Game-changing news from the UK Government clearly shows that it’s very serious about a digital Britain and reusable digital ID. The positive ramifications for UK individuals, businesses and the government are widespread. Collectively, they’ll be massive, with many benefits becoming very visible to voters before the next election. My bet is that many digitally active Brits will choose to get the driving licence “GOV.UK” app, introducing them to easy reusable digital identity.
In a few years’ time, most UK citizens over 17 will be using either a government reusable digital ID or a private sector reusable digital ID (such as Yoti). At this point, when the full impact is felt, I think the AA’s understandably driving-focused assessment of the effects and benefits may be seen as a touch underweight. They said “there are clearly some benefits of having a digital licence, especially if you are pulled over by the police and need to show your documents.”
Provided the UK does not issue very many driving licences to fraudsters, the impact of widespread ID (and age) proofing using verified government driving licence credentials is very helpful to honest individuals and businesses – and very bad news for fraudsters.
Nikhil Rathi, CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority, responded in a 3-page letter to Keir Starmer’s request for UK regulators and regulations to support growth saying “digital identity authentication/verification could unlock huge gains”.
In the US, the challenging process of 50 state governments rolling out mobile driving licences started in 2022. It’ll take around 6-7 years to complete. The UK will go from announcement to national rollout in less than 12 months. In the state of New South Wales in Australia, over 50% of the approximately 6 million drivers downloaded the driving licence app in the first 18 months.
Predictions for the UK digital ID market
Above are 3 examples of reusable digital IDs that are likely to become very popular in the UK. On the left is a screen showing how Peter Kyle could use a UK government app to present his “over 18” digital proof of age. The middle screen shows how an everyday user could use Yoti to share their “over 18” age credential. And the right-hand image shows how a US passport holder can use their Google wallet to have their details added and read using an NFC chip. This can be for presentation or digitally sharing their proof of age. (Expect Apple and Google to offer this feature to UK phone and passport owners in future.)
It’s very likely that:
- Tens of millions of UK citizens will have created and started to use at least one of these reusable digital IDs.
- Many UK individuals will use the UK government app for government ID interactions and some private sector use cases. Examples could be proving age to buy alcohol or proving identity for domestic flights. Individuals may also favour using a private sector app such as Yoti, Google or Apple to do things in the private sector that:
- the UK government app won’t facilitate
- they’d rather not use the government app for (and this doesn’t just mean proving age for porn, vaping or other ‘vices’).
- Many businesses will issue, edit and revoke credentials for employees, contractors, volunteers, customers or guests. This will make their lives easier and simplify trusted interactions for those businesses at a much lower cost than today.
It’s likely some individuals will regularly use any one of these apps (and an Apple one) to prove their age face-to-face or even online. However, there will also be a very big set of ID and verified credential use cases where many businesses favour using one (or more) trusted private sector reusable digital IDs to interact with millions of individuals.
Many of these private use cases will not be regulated in the same way that sensitive government-issued identity documents (or other credentials) are. This is because businesses operate across many countries and there isn’t a lot of logic, or practical ways, for a single country’s government or regulators to try and control how the private sector credential market flourishes (save for overarching consumer or employee rights and data protection type regulations).
Hopes for tackling non-consensual intimate content
In yet another news article covering the non-consented publication of deepfake porn, Jonathan Bates superimposed the heads of real women onto naked images carrying out sex acts. Sunday Times journalist Louise Eccles explains that publishing pornographic images online without the subject’s permission was outlawed by the Online Safety Act last year, but it’s still legal to create deepfakes.
Eccles notes that the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, has said the UK government will introduce legislation to crack down on false pornographic images. The victim in this case explains that when she was trying to get some of the websites to listen and help take down the images, she couldn’t get anywhere.
It is now illegal for online platforms to display pornographic images without the subject’s permission if the content is accessible to UK-located viewers.
If non-consented image abuse continues on many platforms (which it most likely will), I think we will begin to see in the UK:
- a growing number of civil and criminal cases against platforms that choose to continue to display intimate images where faces are clearly visible but there’s no eSign consent captured from the person matching that face.
- given the seriousness of this online harm, increasing pressure on Ofcom to require bigger (and not unreasonably smaller platforms) to use preventative safety tech to avoid the risk of displaying unconsented naked content.
It costs less than £0.50 to use Yoti’s technology (eSignatures + facial authentication + face matching) to gain clear face-matched consent from the one or two subjects in an image or video. It’s hard to see why a UK Court would let off the owners and directors of platforms who say they don’t want to pay that level of fee to use safety tech to ensure they can monetise performer-consented porn.
No consent, no publication.
Age verification for online knife sales
I was delighted to see The Times article highlighting that, thanks to Yoti online age-checking, iconic UK retail brand John Lewis & Partners is now selling kitchen knives online for the first time since 2009. We hope to see the UK government recognise that innovative facial age estimation technology is driving economic growth and enhancing customer experiences – key themes the new government is focusing on.
As Mark Sellman writes, Yoti’s age tech is already used by social media and porn sites. Businesses can set appropriate age thresholds for the technology. These minimise the risk of minors passing for 18 whilst also minimising the percentage of adults who don’t look over the threshold and have to present their ID to prove they’re over 18.
For many years in the physical world, retail staff have judged whether a shopper looks under 25. If so, they decide that the shopper needs to show ID to buy age-restricted goods. After over 6 years of development and 5 years of live use, Yoti’s facial age estimation is understandably and undoubtedly more reliable than the average human at estimating age.
Over the past ~4 years, 11 vendors have had their software certified by Age Check Certification Scheme. Yoti has been tested twice in November 2020 and November 2024. Over the last 15 months, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has evaluated 18 models from 13 vendors and published detailed results.
In early 2022, UK shoppers successfully completed ~94k Yoti facial age estimation checks and ~4k reusable digital ID checks in Home Office trials across 5 supermarket groups. There were NO under 18 shoppers reported as successfully buying alcohol.
Millions of UK people have already successfully used Yoti facial age estimation online to prove they are over 18. Over the next few years, increasing numbers of retailers will offer shoppers a choice of facial age estimation, reusable digital ID or one-time ID verification to prove age when buying age-restricted goods online and in shops.
