Digital

ScotAccount – helping more people to access public services online

September 23, 2024 by Stewart Hamilton No Comments | Category Digital Identity, Digital Scotland, ScotAccount

Trudy Nicolson, Programme Director for the Scottish Government’s digital identity programme, updates us on progress and the opportunities ahead.

ScotAccount launched in February 2023 as a secure and simple way to access public services online. 

Working initially with Disclosure Scotland, ScotAccount has enabled people to access their disclosure results online. More recently, ScotAccount has assisted the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to introduce their new Witness Gateway, giving victims and witnesses the option to access their case information online for the first time. 

The other exciting development has been the introduction of a save capability, which gives people the choice to save their verified personal information into their ScotAccount, for re-use with other services. We’re finding that almost everybody is choosing to do this and, as ScotAccount continues to scale, this will make it easy for people to access other public services saving time, money, and effort for both the user and the public service. 

So, what’s next for ScotAccount? 

As we continue to scale ScotAccount with Disclosure Scotland and COPFS services, we are working with other public services to extend the roll out across the Scottish public sector landscape. 

Our plans include extending the range of verified personal information people can choose to save into their ScotAccount. This will make it easier for people to re-use their information to access other services. 

We’re also working on offering more inclusive ways for people to verify their identity, particularly for those who do not have biometric documents, who have a limited digital footprint due to age or personal circumstances, or for those who struggle with accessing digital services. This involves introducing knowledge-based verification, accepting alternative documents, as well as supporting a CivTech challenge on third party vouching, which looks at how we can use trusted relationships to support people to identify themselves and access those essential public services. 

Additionally, we’re looking at using ScotAccount as the way people will sign-in to access secure messages from public services. This involves another Civtech challenge to develop a secure two-way channel between public services and people who use them. This aims to reduce the numbers of letters we send by post, release cost savings and give people faster, more secure and convenient services. 

Finally, we’re exploring the potential for interoperability with GOV.UK One Login, where this can support users of both Scottish and UK public services. 

 Want to find out more?

If you work for a public service organisation and are interested in finding out more about ScotAccount, you can watch our video or visit ScotAccount. 

To access our test environment, even if your requirement is a simple sign in/login, you can get in touch with the team by emailing: scotaccount@gov.scot 

You can hear more about ScotAccount and other digital projects by subscribing to the Scottish Government Digital Scotland newsletter for regular updates. 

Tags: CivTech, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), digital identity, Disclosure Scotland, ScotAccount, update

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