Government & Public Sector Journal: Tackling the UK Government’s identity crisis
23 November 2018
By David Orme, SVP, IDEX Biometrics
The UK Government influences our lives on a daily basis through its plethora of public services, from the NHS and education to social benefits and national security. However, a re-occurring obstacle that presents a challenge for accessing these services is proving identity. There are also high instances of healthcare and social benefit fraud where effectively proving identity is an ongoing issue. For these public services public services to be fully optimised, it is paramount to have the correct measures of identification in place to ensure that the correct people receive the services they need. Put simply, without an effective means of identification, the UK Government is massively at risk of being unable to maintain control of how its resources are deployed throughout the country.
Amidst this national proof of identity crisis, it should come as a great relief that we are currently on the cusp of a new era of biometric identification. With biometric authentication technology already being used in smartphones and passport identification in the UK, we can expect to see the world moving towards using biometrics as a means of identification in more areas of our everyday lives. In the face of such advancements, the UK must ensure that it does not fall behind the curve.
