GOV.UK One Login has now been implemented across 30 discrete government services and registered almost four millions citizens as verified users.
The new government-wide login system was first deployed by departments in late 2021, when it began being used – on a trial basis – as a means for users to access the service for Disclosure and Barring Service checks. As of
the start of 2024, the platform had still only been adopted by 10 other government services.
But with the intention that all major departments will have deployed the new system by March 2025, the amount of services using One Login is beginning to rise rapidly.
The current list on GOV.UK names 17 services but, according to Cabinet Office minister Lucy Neville-Rolfe, this figure has already risen almost twofold.
“The GOV.UK One Login system is fully operational providing a simple and secure way for people to access government services online,” she said. “Users can create an account, login and prove (and then reuse) their identity – through either a web-based journey, smartphone app or in-person route – to access an initial set of 30 government services. This includes important services such as ‘Request a Disclosure and Barring Service Basic Check’ and ‘Apply for an HM Armed Forces Veteran Card’.”
The volume of individual users of the login platform has also grown significantly of late, according to Neville-Rolfe. As of earlier this year, about 2.5 million people had reportedly completed the process of signing up for One Login, which was developed by the Government Digital Service. This has now risen by more than 50%, according to Neville-Rolfe – who was answering a written parliamentary question from fellow Conservative peer Lord Kempsell.
“More than 3.8 million people have so far proven their identity through GOV.UK One Login, while its app has been downloaded more than five million times,” she said. “GOV.UK One Login’s customer contact centre and technical service desk are now live. Further government services – from HMRC to DWP and DVLA – are due to come on board over the next year. GDS will also continue to optimise GOV.UK One Login’s user journeys, for example by broadening the range of documents and evidence that people can use to prove who they are online.”
The adoption of the technology by HMRC in particular – to replace the long-standing Government Gateway tool – is set to have a transformational effect on One Login’s user numbers in the coming months, which are hoped to rise to more than 30 million by the end of 2024.
The tax agency is one of 15 “major departments” that has formal plans for the adoption of the new login tool, another Cabinet Office minister, Alex Burghart, said in November. Such widespread plans mean that work is “on track” to ensure that “at least 145” of government’s most important services have implemented the platform by the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Once One Login has been ubiquitously implemented, it is intended to provide a single, cohesive replacement for an existing patchwork of 191 separate accounts systems previously used by government agencies, incorporating 44 different login methods.