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.
Last time I wrote about mygovscot myaccount in 2023, we were celebrating hitting the massive milestone of two million accounts and just a little over 18 months later here we are with 2.5 million accounts across Scotland. This is incredible growth over such a short period of time, and it shows no signs of slowing down. 2024 also marks an incredible 10 years of mygovscot myaccount and the platform has achieved so much over the last decade, ably supported by our excellent technology partners Tata Consultancy Services.
So much has happened since I last wrote about mygovscot myaccount that I wanted to use this blog to talk about some of things that have been happening behind the scenes and also to give an update on the work the Digital Public Services (DPS) team at the Improvement Service have been undertaking to improve the platform.
In March 2024 mygovscot myaccount was re-designed, giving it a fresh new look and feel. As part of the redesign, new features were introduced to make it easier for new and existing users to register and log in to their accounts, recover passwords, edit their information and identify the services available to them. If you use the platform and have any feedback on those changes, or the platform in general, we’d be really keen to hear from you.
Over 50% of the eligible Scottish population now use mygovscot myaccount and that is set to grow as more and more public sector services are added which are underpinned by mygovscot myaccount. The platform itself has over 90 integrations with back-office systems across 40 organisations, and as the number of integrations continues to grow so will the number of citizens using the platform.
The platform prioritises security and the security of customer accounts is at the heart of everything we do. We have taken every step to ensure we protect our customers’ data, including updating our password policy and introducing 12-character passwords early in 2024. The move to 12-character passwords was to align with the updated advice from security organisations, Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and Microsoft to set strong passwords for customer accounts due to an increase in cybercrime, and particularly the targeting of public sector organisations.
myaccount also offers two-factor authentication via the IS-developed authentication app, email or text message. 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. Some citizens have even switched this on for themselves, which is great news; it gives the individual more choice and for those that are more security conscious it allows them an extra level of comfort being able to do this.
We are also pleased to announce that in July 2024 we launched the new and improved tellmescotland.gov.uk site, Scotland’s portal to discover and set alerts for public notices. The platform has now been brought in-house and so has become another Scotland-wide service that uses mygovscot myaccount for authentication purposes, much like many of the other products and services in the DPS portfolio. tellmescotland is now more accessible, user-friendly and has benefited from a whole redesign as part of this process.
mygovscot 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. mygovscot myaccount is a toolkit. A toolkit that we can offer to organisations which can be configured to respond to their needs; ranging from identity verification to channel shift and data integrity. It offers organisations and service providers choice and flexibility to help achieve the desired outcomes for their users. The platform also offers a new Right to Work service meaning that right to work checks can be performed online for candidates that had a valid UK or Irish passport. If you’d like to know more about the offerings of mygovscot myaccount, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’d be more than happy to speak to you about any element of the platform’s toolkit.
I said in my previous blog that there was an air of excitement in the team about the direction in which mygovscot myaccount is going and this proved to be the case. The platform has seen lots of exciting developments over the course of 2023 and 2024/25 is set to be no different.
The DPS team at the Improvement Service remain committed to support local government and the wider public sector to deliver on their priorities and commitments. If you are a Scottish local authority or public sector organisation and would like to know more about the platform or if you have any questions, please contact us.