The Cabinet Office has extended the deadline for people to create new accounts on the GOV.UK Verify service, despite plans to replace it within the next year.
It has indicated that new users can continue to sign up to use the digital identity mechanism for online government services until December, compared with an earlier deadline of this month, while it waits for the replacement to become available.
It is sticking to the plan to close the service completely in April 2023.
Cabinet Office minister Health Wheeler MP – who was recently given responsibility for digital and data – announced the move in a parliamentary statement.
“As confirmed in the most recent Spending Review, under the One Login for Government programme, the government is building a single way for citizens to prove their identity and access central government services online,” she said.
“While this new product is being developed, we are continuing to support the connected services which rely on GOV.UK Verify. As such, we have extended the period in which new users of these services will be able to set up an account until December 2022.”
This follows an earlier extension of the deadline at this time last year.
Plan for replacement
The Government Digital Service (GDS), which developed Verify, is now working on the development of One Login as a replacement
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) was due to become the first to begin using One Login for people to validate their identities this month, but as of 29 April the relevant web page is still directing people towards the use of Verify.
Other initiatives on digital identities for government services are taking place. In January the Home Office and DBS said they would allow digital identity checks within a trust framework developed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
