Barclays and PayPal are among a list of nine companies applying to act as identity providers for UK consumers accessing Government services online.
Among the nine companies to make the cut, four - Digidentity, Experian, Post Office and Verizon - have already been providing services for the GOV.UK Verify Identity Assurance programme under a public beta. The remaining five - Barclays, PayPal, GB Group, Morpho and Royal Mail - will begin the certification process shortly.
The idea is to provide a federated service for consumer choice in ID verification when accessing Government services.
"The certified company will ask you for some information and check a range of evidence to establish that it’s really you," the government procurement site explains. "This process involves the certified company asking you for personal data, and the certified company will be responsible for making sure it’s really you each time you come back to use GOV.UK Verify to access a service."
Certified companies are classed as ‘data controllers’ under data protection law. They have to pass through a number of contractual gates - formal processes where the Cabinet Office assesses the service to make sure it will comply with all the relevant legal requirements about the storage and processing of data.