Illustration credit: original vertical version by Scottish Government (tweaked by me to horizontal format)

It appears that the Scottish Government is moving ahead with its Online Identity Assurance programme. I like the ‘facts’ in their graphic above:

• working in the spirit of Open Government
• being user-led
• starting from no preconceived ideas how to achieve the aim that no-one else can pretend to be you to access your online services or to make fraudulent claims
• working with a national stakeholder group
• wanting input from others
  • email onlineidentityassurance@gov.scot
  • Twitter feed @DigitalScots
  • Twitter hashtag #IdentityAssurance
  • Blog: http://blogs.gov.scot/digital

However, I still want assurance that my concerns in my blog post about the March ‘show and tell’ are handled. In short, I want to be sure that this work will benefit (at the very minimum, not become a barrier) to access to government services by those who need it the most.

People such as me (white, middle-class, UK origin, university educated, technophilic, etc) are likely to be able to to navigate digital doings pretty well. But what about those who don’t have the time, the technology and the understanding to do this?

So, just like SG says in its latest blog post, I’m looking forward to [the] next National Stakeholder Group meeting on Tuesday 19 June, where the project team will summarise what has happened since the group last met in February, before holding a discussion on next steps. In addition to members of the Stakeholder Group being invited, [SG] will again be making places available for anyone who wants to come along and participate, or simply observe.