Service to use GOV.UK Verify to authenticate identities of individuals
Pensions Minister Guy Opperman has confirmed that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is going ahead with its plan to set up a national pensions dashboard, with the launch scheduled for 2019.
He confirmed the move in The Times, following speculation that the project, announced in September of last year, had run into difficulties.
This came on the day that one of the private sector figures involved in the project provided details to the Forgerock Identity Summit in London.
Kenneth May, lead architect at not-for-profit financial technology specialist Origo, said the dashboard will make it possible for users to obtain a clear view of their pension holdings with different providers.
A prototype has been developed and the final version should have the ability to find details on about 100 million individual pensions from more than 300 companies, along with the state and final salary pensions.
“People need to take financial responsibility for their retirement, and the purpose of the pension dashboard is to consolidate a view of pensions for millions of users for the first time,” he said. “It will help to answer questions such as ‘What have I got?’ and ‘Where is it?’.”
Back end and APIs
Origo has been developing the central components and back end processes of the dashboard, with a plan to connect to the systems of pension providers through APIs, and has been working with Forgerock on the identification platform to give users access.
May said users will log on to the service through the GOV.UK Verify platform, providing authentication to Level of Assurance 2, the moderate level of security required to access a wide range of online public services.
The use of Verify could contribute significantly to its take up before the end of the decade.
The Unipass service will provide alternative authentication mechanism for financial advisers.
The project got under way last year with the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) managing a cross-industry project that has involved a number of other partners.
