Strong identity checks are now a standard part of many government services. But around one million people in Scotland don’t have a passport or driving licence, putting them at risk of being locked out.
The Scottish Government and Vouchsafe are working together to design more inclusive verification routes for ScotAccount; the Scottish answer to One Login. This talk is a case study in policy design, service design and the careful use of AI to expand rather than reduce access.
Vouchsafe are designing new identity verification routes that don’t rely on photo ID, but still meet the confidence levels required for access to high-value services. We provide a combination of vouching from a trusted referee and rarer kinds of evidence, tied together with automatic checks to provide a more flexible and inclusive way for people to prove who they are.
I'll share insights from our user research and explain how we balanced assurance requirements with them, and how we used user-centred policy design to make the two match up well enough to take our ideas all the way to production.
I'll also reflect on how we're using AI carefully and deliberately—not to replace people, but to make something practical that would otherwise have needed an unfeasible amount of manual effort.
Amy Rogers is a design engineer at Vouchsafe, where she works on inclusive digital identity services for people without photo ID. Her background includes product design roles at startups, agencies, and the identity provider Yoti, as well as freelance work on fast-moving, user-centred teams.
She brings a rare blend of design and front-end skills, helping to prototype and test new service patterns that blend policy, assurance and user needs. Outside of Vouchsafe, she is a certified Notion consultant, with a focus on tools that help people work and think more clearly.
