Digital identity only works if people trust it. And that trust needs to hold in a world where people increasingly live, work and do business across countries.
That’s why international standards matter for the UK’s digital verification services (DVS) trust framework. They help ensure digital identity services are secure, privacy‑respecting and inclusive — and in the longer term, they will be foundational to making UK services compatible with systems in other countries.
Our recent survey findings echo this, with digital verification providers highlighting consistent international standards as critical to enabling cross‑border use of digital credentials, and fragmentation as a key barrier.
At the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA), we’re responsible for setting the rules that digital verification services can follow in the UK to demonstrate their trustworthiness. International standards are a key part of how we do that.
What role do international standards play?International standards are agreed rules developed by experts from governments, industry and civil society around the world. They describe what “good” looks like — for security, privacy, identity assurance and interoperability.
The UK’s DVS Trust Framework is standards‑based and technology‑agnostic, meaning it does not mandate specific technologies or providers. Instead, it focuses on outcomes—such as protecting people’s data, managing risk appropriately, and being transparent about how identity checks work—by drawing on international standards as a shared foundation, including ISO/IEC standards for information security and privacy, W3C Verifiable Credentials for interoperable digital credentials, ITU-T X.1285 (OpenID Connect Core 1.0) and FIDO Alliance standards that support document authentication verification.
This approach brings three important benefits.
Building trust people can rely onBecause international standards are developed through global consensus, they provide a familiar and credible baseline. Aligning the DVS trust framework with them helps reassure people and organisations that certified services meet widely recognised expectations for security and privacy.
Put simply: if a service is certified against the trust framework, it’s meeting standards that are recognised well beyond the UK.
Making digital identity work across bordersDigital identity is increasingly used in international contexts — from travel and education to online services and trade. Shared standards provide a common language for how identity services can be checked and trusted.
Without them, every country would need to create their own, bespoke solutions, making digital identity harder and more expensive to use internationally. Standards reduce friction and make cooperation between countries much easier.
Keeping the system flexible and future‑readyTechnology changes quickly, and digital identity is no exception. International standards evolve over time as new risks, technologies and use cases emerge.
Anchoring the DVS trust framework in international standards, whilst being part of a development process, enables the UK’s trust framework to adapt as best practice changes globally. This helps us support innovation domestically while keeping strong, internationally recognised safeguards in place.
Why the UK engages in international standards developmentInternational standards don’t appear by accident. They’re shaped through Standards Development Organisations (SDOs), where governments and experts work together to agree how technologies should operate – they are negotiated in committees and working groups by representatives from different countries and industries.
For the UK, being at that table is strategically vital. It means having the opportunity to reflect UK values and requirements into the standards that future technologies will follow, rather than simply adopting what others decide. This proactive engagement is a cornerstone of OfDIA’s strategy.
The UK and OfDIA in particular actively engages in this work, including through:
the British Standards Institution (BSI), the UK’s national standards body, which coordinates UK input into international standards bodies such as ISO, IEC and CEN/CENELEC. We are active in BSI’s identity and security standards committees, such as IST/33 (which covers Identity Management and Privacy Technologies) and DLT/1 (Distributed Ledger Technologies and Decentralised Identifiers). the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency that develops global standards for digital technologies, including digital identity and trust services. We participate in ITU-T Study Group 17 (SG17)By engaging through these organisations, the UK can help ensure that international standards:
reflect UK public policy priorities like privacy, inclusion and proportionality support trusted national frameworks like the UK’s DVS trust framework provide a basis for interoperability across borders, rather than fragmenting into incompatible approachesWithout this engagement, there’s a real risk that standards evolve in ways that make digital identity harder to use, harder to trust, or less aligned with public expectations
Supporting policy goals, innovation and digital tradeInternational standards aren’t just technical documents. They’re an important policy tool.
When the UK’s DVS trust framework aligns with global standards:
UK digital identity services are easier to understand and trust internationally businesses face fewer barriers when operating across borders cooperation with international partners becomes simpler and more transparent innovation can scale without weakening protections for usersIn many ways, standards act as the backbone of the digital world. Most people never see them, but they quietly shape how systems connect, how trust is assessed, and how digital markets function. They are essential to making services something people can rely on — wherever and however they need to use them.
Looking aheadInternational standards will continue to shape how digital identity develops around the world. For the UK, the aim is clear: build trust at home while providing a basis for global interoperability.
By grounding the DVS trust framework in international standards — and by staying actively involved in the organisations that develop them — the UK is creating a digital identity system that is:
trusted by users flexible for innovators resilient as technology changes and ready to work across borders.If you would like to discuss standards development, please contact us at correspondence@dsit.gov.uk.
seen at 16:30, 1 April in Enabling digital identity.