Figures reveal that new processed over 350,000 identity checks in January alone, including app and web users, as well as 2,000 people or more each month visiting Post Office branches

GOV.UK One Login is now routinely verifying the identities of more than 200,000 users each month – with the number of ID checks completed across 2024’s opening quarter totalling 840,000.

Across the eight-month period from August 2023 to March 2024, a cumulative total of 1.9 million people verified their identity using One Login. The vast majority of these – 1.84 million – did so using the system’s dedicated ID Check mobile app, with a further 53,801 answering security questions on a web browser, and 8,556 visiting a Post Office branch to verify themselves in person.

In most months, a cumulative total of about 210,000 to 225,000 people went through the verification process. More than 350,000 people did so in January which, as millions across the country filed annual tax returns, was the busiest month for the new government-wide login platform. Even in the quietest month of December, One Login still verified almost 190,000 users.

Monthly usage of the browser-based identity-checking option has varied significantly – reaching 12,116 in January, then dropping back to 2,636 in March.

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The number of people using the in-person route at the Post Office, meanwhile, has steadily risen; in August 2023 only 124 people completed this process but, by February 2024, this figure had grown to 2,274 – am eighteenfold increase.

This face-to-face option was first offered in July 2023 and, between then and the last week of March 2024, the Government Digital Service – which developed One Login – spent £778,064 on the supporting contract with the Post Office.

In October 2023 GDS also established a contact centre to provide telephone and digital support to One Login users. In its first five months in operation, the facility handled 21,623 calls and 12,585 online or email support requests. The set-up of the centre and the delivery of its work so far has cost GDS a total of £926,443, according to Alex Burghart, a minister at the Cabinet Office.

“The public expects quick, secure and user-friendly access to government services,” he added. “Previously, UK citizens and residents needed to grapple with multiple sign-in methods and identity verification routes when using government services online. GOV.UK One Login is replacing these duplicative systems across government with a single account and identity checking system. This will make it easier for users to access the services they need, reduce costs to government, and provide stronger protections against fraud.”

Burghart’s comments and the figures on One Login’s usage and costs were provided in response to a series of written parliamentary questions from Labour MP and shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth.

Another Cabinet Office minister, Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, last month revealed that One Login is now used by 30 government services and has processed the registrations of almost four million users.