Makes me wonder: why do we not have a government provided service? IDing people has, traditionally been a responsibility of the government. Even the private verification services ultimately rely on you showing your government issued ID at some point. If the governments want online verification, they should provide the tools and make sure they are accessible to all.
> Makes me wonder: why do we not have a government provided service?
Because every UKGOV since about 1980 has had an obsession with small government and farming out as much as they can to private contractors[0] regardless of consequences.
[0] Until those contractors fail to perform / go bust at which point the government steps in, things get better (shockingly) for a while, and then the government farms it out to another bunch of idiots who have ~bribed~ lobbied hard and the cycle repeats.
It sounds like a good idea to me and given the quality of some of the government tech services now in the UK I'm sure they could do a good job of it. But people are still against ID cards. Telling the government directly that you're viewing content on specific sites seems like something that would never be accepted.
