Defence department is seeking to identify technologies that could, in the first instance, enable a select band of officials and military to access classified information, before rollout across wider sector

The Ministry of Defence has brought in expert consultants to help explore the technological possibilities for the digital identity and verification processes used to enable the work of officials operating at Secret level.

At the start of last month, the MoD entered into a two-month contract with Leeds-headquartered digital consultancy Hippo. The firm has been brought in to advise the department’s ongoing digital ID programme in the area of “identity attestation verification”, according to a newly published commercial notice.

Over the course of the engagement, Hippo will be tasked with delivering “a detailed assessment of… existing processes of user identity validation/verification and entitlement attestation processes and procedures” used by the ministry and the wider defence sector.

Having completed this review, the supplier will then help the MoD to “define the next steps that presents technical solution options for circa 20k Secret users – who can be based overseas – which is also scalable to other users, like Official, in the future”.

Secret is the middle of government’s three tiers of security classification – below Top Secret, but above the Official level at which the vast majority of government documents and systems are classified. According to official guidance, Secret classification is applied to “very sensitive information that requires enhanced protective controls, including the use of secure networks on secured dedicated physical infrastructure”.

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While the digital ID investigations supported by the tech provider will focus on the 20,000 government officials and military representatives empowered to operate at Secret level – and digitally access information classified at this level – the ministry ultimately hopes to find tech platforms that could work across the wider defence sector under the MoD’s watch.

“The processes under development need to operate at scale, with a (nominal) 250k identities that we would consider to be the active core defence community, and of the order of 1,000 changes (joiners/movers/leavers) a week,” the notice says. “Each defined option must be analysed holistically to ensure (if accepted/approved) can be implemented with immediate effect.”

Processes that will be covered by the assessment will include the creation of new user identities, and their subsequent management and, ultimately, retirement or deletion. Also being reviewed are internal processing models for identities, as well as how they might be used by external bodies and procedures for monitoring and reporting possible suspicious activity.

The procurement document indicates that these processes will invariably differ slightly, depending on the context – with variations between systems for serving military personnel, members of overseas forces, civilians in Armed Forces roles, officials in the MoD, civil servants from the rest of government, contractors, and suppliers.

The deal is valued at £13,200 inclusive of VAT.