Julie Edington, Business Development Manager in the Digital Public Services team, writes about the success of the mygovscot myaccount platform, the simple and secure sign-in service for online public services in Scotland.
At the end of 2022 mygovscot myaccount, or ‘myaccount’ as it’s best known, hit an incredible milestone of two million accounts. At that particular time, I had only been with the Improvement Service approaching one year but I was fortunate enough to be part of a great team (Digital Public Services) that had worked so hard to reach this massive milestone, and I got to celebrate this achievement alongside them. Some of the team have been involved with myaccount from day one so it was particularly exciting for them to see just how far the service has come. Achieving this milestone also attracted some attention from the Scottish Parliament as it was acknowledged in a parliamentary motion; it was great for the platform to get that level of recognition, and help raise its profile even more.
From its humble beginnings in 2014 when it first launched with just 19,258 accounts, myaccount has made huge progress and now can boast over 2,105,300 accounts (as of 20 March 2023), and is now used by an impressive 36% of the Scottish population to access public services online.
It’s not just the number of accounts that are significant, however, but also the number of authentications, as this is another key indicator of how the platform has grown. Year on year the authentications grow and if you compare 2021 annual authentications to 2022, the figures are astounding. In 2021 we had 9,627,585 authentications while 2022 came in at 15,578,462; the increase in figures can’t all be attributed to the Young Person’s Free Bus Travel scheme, illustrating that usage really has grown exponentially.
The number of organisations using myaccount is also continuing to grow. Forty organisations are live with myaccount and all 32 councils across Scotland use myaccount to enable their citizens to access online services. Out of the 32 local authorities, 27 have myaccount integrated to at least one back-office system, and many councils have multiple integrations.
myaccount may be best known as the simple and secure single sign-in service to access various online public services in Scotland but it is so much more than this. myaccount is a toolkit. A toolkit that we can offer to organisations and which can be configured to respond to their requirements; this can range from identity verification to channel shift and data integrity. It offers organisations/service providers choice and flexibility to help achieve the desired outcomes for their users.
Depending on the requirements of an organisation, myaccount has the ability to provide tools which will enable the organisation to achieve Good Practice Guide 44 (GPG 44) authentication levels and verified identities that meet Good Practice Guide 45 (GPG 45) profiles (medium and high confidence profiles). By following these principles, we can quickly and effectively prove who people are, and also help reduce the danger of identity fraud.
In 2022, the Improvement Service’s digital identity provider, Yoti, became the UK’sfirst certified Identity Services Provider (ISDP) under the Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, authorised by Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). Yoti is also the Identity Services Provider for the Post Office.
Users don’t need to have a Yoti app to have their identity verified via myaccount, as myaccount itself offers additional routes which uses the Yoti identity verification (IDV) services during the user journey. For example, on the getyournec.scot platform, applicants can choose to verify using the Yoti app (if they have one) or they can continue to upload documents and a selfie to the website, which will then call upon the Yoti IDV services during the application process to verify the user’s identity.
myaccount also now offers two-factor authentication via the IS-developed authentication app, email and SMS. This can either be made mandatory by the service provider, or the user can enable it themselves if they wish, offering another added layer of security.
There is certainly an air of excitement in the team about the direction in which myaccount is going as we continue to make refinements in response to customer and stakeholder needs. We can’t wait to see what 2023 brings for the platform, and how myaccount and the Digital Public Services team at the Improvement Service can continue to support local government and the wider public sector to deliver on their priorities and commitments.