Saturday, 17 November 2012

Identity assurance and midata – two new ideas for a grateful public to get used to

Mydex and the Post Office – the instant cartel,
just add money to taste

The UK was lucky enough last week to have seven "identity providers" (IDPs) appointed, one of which is the Post Office. One man who worked on the Post Office's bid is Toby Stevens. Writing about how he moved from being anti-ID cards to being pro-identity assurance (IDA) he says, among other things:
How I learned to stop worrying and love identity assurance
... The IDA programme differs from its predecessors in many ways, in that public bodies can't be Identity Providers (IDPs) - IDPs will be exclusively private sector ...
New idea #1 – the Post Office is not a public body.

How will IDA work in practice? That has yet to be decided. When he was interviewed by Ctrl-Shift, the consultancy company famous among DMossEsq readers, Mr Stevens was able to tell us this, though:
The significance of the Identity Assurance programme
Over the next 18 months the selected IDPs will collaborate to develop their service offerings and a delivery Scheme which can handle the branding and governance for IDA services. DWP will pay those IDPs to register and maintain identities on a 'per active user, per annum' basis ...
Ctrl-Shift conducted an interview with one of the other newly-appointed IDPs, Mydex – please see Identity assurance: Mydex's unique contribution. Given how close the two organisations are, Ctrl_Shift may as well have interviewed itself. What is Mydex's market offer? That's one of the tricky questions lobbed at Mydex during the interview, along with how do you see the market changing? The last line of the interview is:
This is [a] recipe for positive change and we are delighted to be part of the market solution.
New idea #2 – when the government (Cabinet Office + Department for Business Innovation and Skills) pays a consultancy (Ctrl-Shift) to produce reports recommending one of its policies (midata) which is designed by the chairman (William Heath) of the software house (Mydex) on which the policy depends and then pays them (Mydex) "on a 'per active user, per annum' basis", that is a market solution.

In the old days, before we were all born, yesterday, "markets" meant competition. In the new cartelised world, now, at no risk to consumers:
... the selected IDPs will collaborate to develop their service offerings ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It has not been widely reported but Universal Credit applicants will be able to choose a public body to provide their digital identity rather than using the private sector IDPs. They should be quite familiar with this entity, it's DWP.

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