PayPal slips off list of certified companies as service prepares to go live this month
Eight companies have been confirmed as certified to authenticate identities under the GOV.UK Verify identity assurance programme, with PayPal dropping off the list of those that had been on the framework.
Four of the companies that originally began working with the programme in 2014 – the Post Office, Experian, Digidentity and Verizon – are on the list with four that joined the scheme in a second wave in March of last year – Barclays Bank, GB Group, Royal Mail and SecureIdentity (originally on the list as Morpho).
A blogpost by Stephen Dunn of the Verify team says that PayPal, which joined in the second wave, will not be joining the new framework being set up for the service.
No reason has been given, but the blog refers to a “rigorous onboarding process” that involves a series of tests on identity proofing and verification, user experience, operations and technical integration.
It makes the company the second to either withdraw or be dropped from the programme. Mydex, one of the first wave, dropped out early last year.
Verify is scheduled to go live for a number of yet unspecified central government online services – earlier forecast at 15 – later this month. The certified companies can use different methods and data sources to establish that an individual is who they say they are, then authenticate the identities to service providers through a central hub.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
