What a ride it has been for the UK’s Digital Verification Services (DVS) Trust Framework. Originally developed as the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework (DIATF), it aimed to support the development of a healthy private digital identity sector in the UK, by providing trusted certification to qualifying providers. The promise was briefly threatened by former prime minister Keir Starmer’s ill-fated government digital identity plan, but Starmer’s departure reduced the pressure on DVS providers, even as it eliminated the DVS framework’s overseeing body in shutting down the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
Since then, the promise of what is now called the DVS Trust Framework has been gradually restored, buoyed by announcements that changes to the mandatory licensing conditions to allow digital ID for proof of age when buying alcohol will require businesses to use age verification from a certified DVS provider. Now, from September 1st, the first version of the framework is officially live.
Major UK provider OneID explains that “when 1.0 does come into force, a few things change at once. Providers certified against it become entitled to use the trust mark for the first time, and any provider certifying from scratch will only be able to certify against 1.0. Existing certified services get at least fifteen months to uplift, with the option of staying on 0.4 for an additional year at the next evaluation.”
The legal blueprint is now officially ready. To quote yet more comments, these ones sent to Biometric Update by Jonathan Evans, country manager for Digidentity, “from 1st September, digital identity verification finally has proper legal footing in the UK. That’s a milestone.”
Banks have a hard time letting go of in-house legacy ID systems
Yet doubts and questions remain. To continue quoting Evans, the activation of DVS Trust Framework 1.0 “doesn’t solve the harder problem: getting regulated businesses comfortable enough to actually rely on it.”
“Banks especially have built their identity checks in-house and are used to owning that risk directly,” he says. “Handing part of it to a specialist provider feels like a loss of control, even where it isn’t.” That reluctance to trust external products, he says, gets more costly by the day, as deepfakes and synthetic identities outpace legacy verification processes, leading to a spike in fraud losses. According to data from Regula, deepfakes are now a top-tier threat for many businesses, and identity risk is near-universal at 98 percent of surveyed organizations.
Evans says “this framework is a step forward, but the real test is whether banks, insurers and other regulated firms trust it enough to change how they work. That takes more than a legal deadline. It needs sector-specific guidance to catch up with the framework, and it needs firms to accept that a process they’ve always run themselves can be done better by someone who specialises in it.”
He suggests that’s a bigger ask than the industry is currently prepared for – and that, despite being newly equipped with its active DVS Trust Framework, the market is stalled.
New and improved DVS Trust Framework, now with distinctive mark!
The UK’s digital identity debate has spent years circling around legislation, governance and public trust. Starting September 1, those foundations are largely in place.
The next phase is commercial rather than political: convincing banks, insurers and other regulated organizations that relying on certified identity providers is less risky than continuing to build and maintain identity systems themselves.
Here is where the arts of communication, persuasion and marketing will take on extra weight in the development of the UK’s digital ID ecosystem. The Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) remains committed to supporting biometrics and digital identity providers certified under the DVS Trust Framework; its recent Digital Identity Sectoral Analysis Report 2026 laid out the scale of the industry, showing 275 firms generating an estimated £2.027 billion in annual revenue.
But it also acknowledged that growth in the sector has become “sluggish,” and suggested that “the next phase will focus on scaling adoption and strengthening the regime.”
Financial and professional services remain the core customer sector for DVS certified providers – but truly scaling adoption means getting large legacy financial institutions to buy in. OfDIA has committed to ramping up stakeholder engagement, which is a fancy way of saying the work now is convincing businesses that the DVS Trust Framework provides the best path forward for secure digital ID, digital identity verification, authentication, biometric age assurance and more. The trust mark is now live. Next comes the trust.
Article Topics
Digidentity | digital verification service (DVS) | DVS Trust Framework | financial services | identity verification | OfDIA | OneID | UK digital ID
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