In Scotland, we need to move into a new digital world and see digital identity as a core part of this. Scotland needs to move forward in the same way that Estonia has.
In our lives, we have many identities, and we should not just have one digital identity. Some of our online services require a high level of trust and will necessitate verification of our identity by the UK or Scottish Government. At the current time, I have virtually no real provable identity with the public sector.
This is especially seen in the NHS, where we need to start to anchor our digital identities with the interaction we have with health and social care. At the core of any identity system, we must put in place safeguards for an identity system, and make sure that government agencies cannot track our online activities.
To overcome this, we should view the UK and Scottish Government ID systems as just one method of proving our online identity, allowing us to establish this once and not have to continually prove it. There are many areas of our economy which will benefit from the application of the UK and Scottish Government ID system, including KYC (Know Your Customer) in financial transactions.
A key advancement will be the advancement of proper digital methods within our work, including with identity verification in voting and in international travel. We should now be moving into a world where we see our digital wallet just like the wallet in our pocket, and where we can store the credentials we need to interact in a truly digital way.
Estonia has led the way with this, and Scotland should follow, especially in opening up new opportunities in economic development, and which require the proof of identity at their core. If we do not take advantage of the advancements in digital identity, we will lose out.
To me, this is less about stopping people from coming into the country illegally and more about building a future economy and a new world of digital engagement with the public sector in Scotland, and for citizens to have more control of their data. We need an X-Road data architecture for Scotland – otherwise, citizens will have no idea about how their data is being used.