Introduction
On 27 December 2021, the government announced its intention to enable employers and landlords to use certified digital identity service providers (IDSPs) to carry out identity checks on their behalf for many who are not in scope to use the Home Office online services, including British and Irish citizens. Alongside this the Disclosure and Barring Service’s (DBS) proposal will enable digital identity checking within their criminal record checking process using certified digital identity service IDSPs.
This guidance sets how IDSPs can become certified to complete digital identity checks for the Right to Work, Right to Rent, and DBS schemes respectively, in line with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (the trust framework).
The trust framework is a set of rules organisations agree to follow to conduct secure, trustworthy identity or attribute checks. The initial alpha version of the trust framework was published in February 2021, with an updated version of the trust framework published in August 2021 following feedback from the public, industry, and civil society. A consultation on underpinning the trust framework in legislation ran from July to September 2021.
The Right to Work, Right to Rent, and DBS initiatives form part of DCMS’s trust framework’s testing process, and learnings will help to further refine its development.