Identity verification for access to digital public services

What a public portal asks of a remote identity check

A public portal has to serve everyone who is entitled to the service, including people without a national electronic identity, people with an older phone, and people who simply prefer not to use a wallet. At the same time it has to be reasonably sure that the person using a service is the person it concerns. The two aims meet in the choice of routes: which ways in does the portal offer, which one does it recommend, and what does it do when a route fails?

Portals differ in how much they ask of a person who arrives by this route. Some only need to know that the person is real and the document is genuine; others need the details read from the document to match a record. In both cases the portal, not the check, decides what the person is entitled to do. A good design keeps those two things apart, so that a failure of the check is never mistaken for a refusal of the service, and the person is told what to do next.

• Offer a document-based remote route next to any wallet or national eID route.
• Let a person who started on a computer finish on a phone.
• Send cases the check cannot settle to a caseworker.
• Keep the result separate from the entitlement decision, which stays with the service.

The flow

1. Choice of route. The portal shows the routes it accepts. A person with a wallet or a national eID uses it. This step belongs to the portal, not to the platform.
2. Start. For a person who takes the document route, the portal creates a session through the API. The person continues in the web widget on a phone, or scans a QR code to move from a desktop.
3. Document. The person photographs a passport, national ID card, driver's licence or residence permit. The document is read and checked for fraud.
4. Selfie and liveness. The selfie is matched to the document portrait and active liveness confirms a live person.
5. Review. A case that the check cannot settle goes to a caseworker, who decides manually in the dashboard.
6. Result. The portal reads the session status or receives a webhook, and its own rule decides which services the person may open.
7. Return visits. A returning user is compared with a stored reference face.

Where this differs from the government page

The government services page uses a US publication on identity proofing to describe the tasks of resolving, validating and verifying an applicant. This page is about routes. Under the European framework a digital identity wallet is voluntary and the older ways of reaching a service must stay open, so the interesting question is what a portal offers when someone does not use a wallet. The answer sets the shape of this flow: a document route that works alone, with a clear hand-off to a caseworker. The platform does not claim an assurance level under any scheme. Which level a service needs, and whether a document-based route meets it, is for the service and its Member State to decide.

Modules used

• Document verification, face verification and liveness.
• Web SDK and widget with QR hand-off, in 90+ languages.
• Dashboard for the caseworker's manual decision.
• REST API and webhooks.
• Deployment: in the cloud, or installed on your own servers by our engineers.

Regulatory frame

One European Union text: Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 of 11 April 2024, which amends Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 as regards establishing the European Digital Identity Framework. It was published in the Official Journal on 30 April 2024. The statements below are from the amending text.

• Article 5a(15) states that the use of European Digital Identity Wallets is voluntary, that access to public and private services, access to the labour market and freedom to conduct business shall not in any way be restricted or made disadvantageous to natural or legal persons that do not use them, and that it remains possible to access public and private services by other existing identification and authentication means.
• Article 5f(1) provides that where Member States require electronic identification and authentication to access an online service provided by a public sector body, they also accept European Digital Identity Wallets.
• Article 24(1) requires a qualified trust service provider, when issuing a qualified certificate or a qualified electronic attestation of attributes, to verify the identity of the natural or legal person to whom it is issued.
• Article 24(1a) lists the methods: the wallet or a notified electronic identification means at assurance level high; a qualified electronic signature or seal certificate; other identification methods which ensure identification with a high level of confidence and whose conformity is confirmed by a conformity assessment body; or the physical presence of the person.

This block describes the text, not our service. For information; not legal advice.

Sources

• Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 amending Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 as regards establishing the European Digital Identity Framework, Official Journal text, fetched 27 October 2026.

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