Pilot announced for identity assurance measures

Milton Keynes Council is to pilot the Cabinet Office’s identity assurance scheme during a new feasibility study aiming to empower citizens with their own data.

The council has joined with four other organisations to run the three month miData Studio project. 

The miData Studio project aims to create an open, collaborative environment where citizens, the council and developers will explore how empowering citizens with their own information can enable better services, better quality of life and efficiency in the delivery of public services.

A statement on behalf of the partners said: “The project will look for new ways for citizens to gain control of their information, exploring how they can give controlled access to trusted service providers for the services they want or need.

“It will also act as a pilot for the Cabinet Office’s identity assurance scheme in a local authority context.”

The Cabinet Office has already tested a beta version of its new identity assurance technology with central government departments Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. However, this is understood to be the first test of the system within local government.

The council will work with research organisation the Connected Digital Economy Catapult, consultancy Ctrl-Shift, the Cabinet Office and the Open University.

The project will develop exemplar cases which deliver benefit to the council and citizens and the local economy more generally.

The partners said: “The project will create a space for learning about working with citizens’ data, building a safe environment to try things out and study what works and what doesn’t work. 

“Crucially the project aims to understand how to do this in such a way that individuals are in control of their data.” 

The project will be run on the following principles:

  • Access – citizens own their shared data and can copy or withdraw it at will;
  • Control – consent must be given for any type of data use;
  • Minimization – only the data needed for the specific processing operation should be used;
  • Transparency – the citizen must know about use of their data;
  • Correctness – the data source must be correct and easy to update;
  • Simplicity – services designed to be comprehensible to all citizens;
  • Compliance – citizens wish to be assured that services meet the foregoing principles.

The feasibility study will examine the detail of how the principles would work in practice and make recommendations for engineering them into the design of the project.

Colin Marrs

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