Passport pilot to reduce risk of fraud from digital copying

MEMBERS of the public are being warned that they are compromising their financial safety by uploading copies of their passport to the internet.

It comes as people are increasingly being asked to upload or let companies make digital copies of their passports for services such as opening bank accounts, applying for loans or to use online gambling apps.

The Government is setting up a scheme to reduce digital copying by verifying the identity of customers directly for companies.

The pilot will see approved companies asking the Government if applicants for services such as credit cards or new bank accounts hold a valid UK passport. They will then receive a yes or no answer without needing to see or store a customer’s passport.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said the pilot will launch later this year and conclude in 2021, after which it will decide whether to roll out a wider version.

Jeremy Wright, the Culture and Digital Secretary, said the scheme would help prevent people falling victim to identity theft by reducing the number of digital copies of passports being held by private companies.

Announcing the scheme, he said: “These new proposals could make it easier for people to prove their identity without compromising their personal information and for businesses to conduct checks in a safe and secure way.

“This will help make sure more and more people benefit from the huge potential of technology and can use it to shop, bank and access Government services.” Recent figures show that last year Cifas, the fraud prevention service, reported 189,000 incidents of identity theft in the UK.

Government figures estimate that around 400,000 UK passports are lost or stolen every year.

The passport scheme will be open to people who have already signed up to the Government’s Verify scheme, which creates one online ID that can be used across a range of public services.

Under the pilot, people who have already signed up to Verify will be able to choose the Government as one of the ways to confirm their identity when applying for services with participating companies.

The Post Office, Barclays and Experian are among the first companies being lined up to take part in the scheme.

The pilot is also partly aimed at boosting the number of people signing up to the Verify scheme, which has been criticised for failing to attract enough users. In 2016 the Government predicted that as many as 25 million people would be signed up by 2020, however, current estimates put the figure closer to 5million.

Oliver Dowden, the minister for implementation, said: “We are committed to delivering a thriving digital identity market that allows people to access more government and private sector services online safely and securely.

“Last October I announced that the GOV.UK Verify programme is mature enough to move to the next phase of its development, in which the private sector takes on responsibility for broadening the usage and application of digital identity in the UK.

“Allowing organisations greater flexibility to reuse identities is an important step towards this goal.”