Be Part of The Debate On Identity
Be Part of The Debate On Identity
I used to go to many conferences which debated the integration of the citizens into national government, health and local government services. I eventually gave up going to these events, as every year, everyone would go away with the message to do something great, and nothing ever happened. It was all hot air, and no delivery.
I still fill-in bits of paper for the NHS and have no proper digital interaction with most things in the public sector. For all the great words on supporting digital integration into the NHS, nothing really ever happens at scale. With the NHS, we often have another “flagship project for digital integration and innovation, and with citizen-focused care”, and which will then just fail after seven years (this is a common measure and is typically the time it takes digital projects in the NHS to fall), and followed by a new flagship project. There’s no debate, no digital architecture for e-government and health care, no X-Road, and no technical leadership.
To put Dido Harding in charge of track-and-trace in the UK showed a real lack of ambition in truly transforming digital services in the NHS and other government services. The NHS, as with many other government services, are just limping along and are stuck in the Web of the 1980s — where it is all about getting Web pages on-line.
And, so, one of the great prides of Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye is Condatis (a name derived from the ‘ancient Celtic deity worshipped primarily in northern Britain but also in Gaul’) … and who is a company that saw the importance of digital identity in building a more secure and trusted world. They are now driving the identity agenda in the UK, and employing their skills and expertise around the world.
Unfortunately, the integration of the citizens into government services in the UK seems almost non-existent in so many places. While the integration of citizens into tax and in the payment of parking tickets are excellent, the rest are lagging and barely reach a level beyond putting a form on -line. This is (especially true in health care — and where I still have to fill in bits of paper and where my GP has virtually no useful online services and where the NHS has a fleeting digital interaction with me.
Without a proper digital identity infrastructure for government services and the public sector, we build on sand. But, at the start of the 21st Century, the UK trying to implement a national identity system, but it failed because it could have been used as a spying network on citizens. There was no real debate, no showing of plans, and no discussion. A single anonymous blog post killed it dead.
No one has the right answer for this, but we will not get anywhere unless we try to improve things. With the e-ID being rolled-out, it will leave many countries behind in its scope.
And so Cameron Bell from Condatis will be speaking at ‘Think Digital Identity for Government’ on 10 Oct, 2023; register here and be part of one of the most important debates of our lifetime, and let’s get it right this time: