But officials told MPs at a Public Accounts Committee hearing on Monday that work continues on GOV.UK One Login, the government's online identity-checking service, along with a government digital wallet and a growing set of digital credentials.
Officials said more than 80 types of documents are earmarked for the wallet, including proof of benefits, driving test certificates and Disclosure and Barring Service certificates.
Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Green asked whether the public-sector infrastructure for digital ID was still being pursued, and Rupert Lowe MP warned Britain could get digital ID "by the back door rather than the front door." Susannah Storey, permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), said One Login lets people prove who they are online but is not a national digital identity strategy.
Rod Latham, a DCMS director, said only plans for a new identity product had been scrapped, since One Login, the wallet and work on a digital identity trust framework predated the national scheme.
Officials also said the government has opened a testing environment for private sector providers to integrate with its wallet technology, so digital driving licences could be used to prove age in pubs, collect parcels or verify identity online. Natalie Jones, senior responsible owner for One Login, described a "chicken and egg" problem, because a digital licence is only useful if businesses are ready to accept it. More testing is planned for December, with a national rollout of digital driving licences targeted for 2027. Jones said One Login is "not a big data lake," stores identity information separately, cannot see what users do inside government services and does not issue a single identifier to people. Officials maintained that people would keep alternatives to digital identification.