The National Assessments Centre, which sits within the National Crime Agency (NCA), has been commissioned by the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) to produce an intelligence assessment into the fraud threats targeting businesses providing digital identity products and services.
The purpose of this piece of work is to further improve our understanding of how fraud manifests in, and is enabled by, digital identity services and providers, and the impacts of this fraud for providers, users and relying parties. The resulting intelligence assessment will support ongoing NCA and OfDIA strategic decision making, support the allocation of resource against threats and target response activity.
How we're gathering evidence
As part of the intelligence collection for this assessment, OfDIA has issued a survey to key partners to gather information relating to how the digital identity services ecosystem is both targeted for fraud and unintentionally enables fraud. This intelligence collection will contribute to growing the NCA and OfDIA’s cross community view of the threats.
The survey seeks information from organisations about their roles and functions in the digital identity ecosystem and the fraud threats and common attacker tactics they see across the variety of digital identity journeys their services support. Organisations are also invited to provide insight into supply-chain and third-party risks, and mitigations for fraud detection, prevention and management.
The survey went live on 10th July 2026, and OfDIA are seeking responses by 7th August 2026.
Next steps
After the survey results are received, the NCA will use the intelligence provided to undergo threat analysis and highlight key vulnerabilities to OfDIA. The intelligence assessment is expected to conclude in November 2026.
The vulnerabilities identified through this research will be used by OfDIA to identify priority fraud risks, evaluate and improve existing interventions such as requirements in the UK digital verification services trust framework, and inform future policy development to support organisations in preventing and responding to fraud.
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