GOV.UK ID Check

Government Digital Service

About this app

GOV.UK ID Check is a secure way to confirm your identity when you sign in to a government service with GOV.UK One Login. It works by matching your face to your photo ID.

Before you start
You can use any of the following types of photo ID if it has not expired:
• UK photocard driving licence
• UK passport
• non-UK passport with a biometric chip
• UK biometric residence permit (BRP)
• UK biometric residence card (BRC)
• UK Frontier Worker permit (FWP)

You will also need:
• a well-lit area where you can take a good quality photograph
• an Android phone running Android version 10 or higher

How it works
If your photo ID is a driving licence you will:
• take a photo of your driving licence
• scan your face using your phone

If your photo ID is a passport, BRP, BRC or FWP you will:
• take a photo of your photo ID
• scan the biometric chip in your photo ID using your phone
• scan your face using your phone

What happens next
The app only helps confirm your identity. You will return to the website of the government service you were accessing to view the results of your identity check.

Privacy and security
Your personal information will not be stored in the app, or on the phone when you finish using it. We collect your data securely and delete it when it is no longer needed.

Ratings and reviews

A mixed experience with the app. The imaging of documents and face worked well. But it completely failed to read the biometric chip on my passport despite several attempts, including my activating NFC, checking where my phone's NFC sensor was located, and taking the phone out of its case. Maybe more guidance should be provided before scanning the chip? A help link did appear later but was not accessible.

The scanning of the chip on the front of the passport is automatically done without a prompt. I went through several reiterations by pressing “help with scanning“ before I realised it was automatic. Once you're in the loop of “help with scanning you can't get out. At that point you have to uninstall the app and start again.

Doesn't work with Firefox. spent ages tweaking and fiddling with permissions trying to get it to work. eventually had to enable chrome and make it the default browser to get it to work. Shoddy effort, must try harder.

What's new

Bug fixes and analytics improvements.