This article, "What does Companies House know that DBS doesn't?," originally appeared on AccountingWeb.com.
Many years ago my wife and I had to pay the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) for basic criminal record checks to satisfy some anti-money laundering condition of a professional indemnity insurance policy of ours. You and your clients may have taken part in a similar performance.
“Basic” is the lowest grade of DBS check (https://www.gov.uk/dbs-check-applicant-criminal-record) . Serious parties can only rely on higher grades (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dbs-guidance-leaflets/dbs-che….).
Four days ago DBS and the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) confirmed that a digital identity verification service can only be used for DBS basic checks if (a) it is registered with the Digital Identity and Attributes Framework (DIATF) and (b) it abides by the supplementary code for DBS checks, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dbs-identity-checking-guideli… and https://www.gov.uk/guidance/supplementary-code-for-disclosure-and-barrin…).
For some time GOV.UK One Login appeared on the DIATF register which certified it to be trustworthy. But it did not abide by any of the supplementary codes for DBS basic checks, for right-to-work and for right-to-rent. It wasn’t good enough then even for DBS basic checks let alone higher grade checks and now that it has been ejected from the register (https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366623835/Govuk-One-Login-loses-cert…) it is doubly so, doubly not good enough.
Quite how “request a basic DBS check” remains on the list of government services you can access via GOV.UK One Login (https://www.gov.uk/using-your-gov-uk-one-login/services) is a mystery.
GOV.UK One Login is unlikely to regain its DIATF certification now that the parlous state of its cyber security has been revealed (please see https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366623357/Govuk-One-Login-yet-to-mee… and https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366623991/Security-tests-reveal-seri…, for example).
DBS, OfDIA and DSIT don’t think GOV.UK One Login provides a good enough identity verification service for a basic criminal record check, nor for the other DIATF supplementary codes to prove the right to work and the right to rent.
How on earth does Companies House think that GOV.UK One Login is going to help in its uphill task of crime prevention?
What do they know that DBS, OfDIA and DSIT don’t?