Open Identity Exchange (OIX) led a pre-discovery workshop, in late May 2015, with senior representatives of some of the UK’s biggest organisations from a wide cross section of industries looking at what the private sector requirements are for Identity Services. This workshop was facilitated by KPMG, using their U Collaborate process.

The outcome of this workshop is a white paper Discovering the Needs for UK Identity Assurance. The paper summarises findings from the workshop and also sets out a scope and structure for how this work will be expanded beyond those organisations that were represented in May, to understand the wider identity needs across the UK.

U-Collaborate Session, May 2015

Major banks, telecoms providers, retailers, local authorities, online gambling providers, identity providers, Central Government, representatives from the sharing economy, industry associations and subject matter experts engaged in a series of facilitated exercises concerning the growth of the UK digital identity ecosystem.

The ‘u collaborate’ process aimed to begin the process of understanding what the private sector want in relation to identity assurance, seeking to understand if adopting a federated approach to identity was favoured and if it was, what the benefits and challenges might be.

Four market models were used representing the current fragmented market of today, the ‘wild west’ so to speak, through to a future vision of collaboration around needs for identity assurance services.

These models were discussed during the workshop with the aim to find a consensus about which market models would work best across both public and private sector.

Market Model Identified by Participants

After a consensus was reached, identifying the model with the most overall benefits, (cross-industry) the process concluded with the participants considering possible ways in which the market could move forward and how OIX UK would lead a discovery process over the summer defining a practical route to this preferred model.

A Survey of Private Sector Needs

Further work has been conducted recently to understand the private sector’s needs for identity services. Following a series of workshops in the Autumn of 2015, organisations were invited to complete a survey. The agenda and presentation  from the workshops can be found in the links here.

The findings from the survey have been published in an OIX White Paper.