Belgium develops digital wallet for online government services, UK could follow
Belgium announced the launch of a digital wallet allowing people living in the country to access government services through a single online platform. The digital wallet would be used to consolidate all official documents, according to The Brussels Timesand allow people to authenticate their digital identity through their smartphones.
The government is creating a new digital ministry to oversee the project, and Secretary of State for Digitization Mathieu Michel said the system would complement existing systems by ministries. A budget of 50 million euros (approximately $ 58.2 million) has been set to implement the portfolio and digital platform.
The digital wallet will not be mandatory, but offered as an option to streamline digital processes, from driver’s license applications to building permits, and to assess government complexity.
The government has yet to say whether the digital wallet will be developed as a mobile app, website, or both.
The system is expected to be operational in 2023.
British public support similar move
Meanwhile, in the UK, a majority of respondents say their level of confidence in accessing public services online has increased over the past two years. British authority, but most want a government digital identity solution to reduce the number of steps required.
The survey was commissioned by BT and showed that 60% are more confident in accessing online services, 75% expressing the comfort of using their smartphone to access digital public services.
However, online public services are generally not used frequently, as almost half of UK citizens have full internet access use them at most a few times a year. The report suggested that this commitment may be due to varying quality between services. A third of those surveyed said they used an online service that was not fully digitized, with some requiring paper forms to be submitted, and 15% said they needed multiple attempts with the same service to complete a single action.
A government digital ID is supported by 73% of respondents.
The survey also showed that some people are more confident in the government’s ability to manage people’s data than before the pandemic, but 80% are said to be more transparent about online data.
Subjects of the article
biometrics | consumer adoption | data protection | digital identity | digital wallet | government | public services | identity verification | online authentication | UK