Re: The Government Gateway is good tech
Not trying to defend it as I think it was doomed from the start, but I think you've missed what the scheme is about.
The Government has essentially outsourced the validation of your documents when you apply for a Government ID.
The third parties provide the initial matching of who you claim to be to your passport, driving licence, bank account, voters roll, etc and allow you to create a government verified ID. That ID is then used to access the Government services by authentication within the Government services, not back through the verifying party. So Experian et al only see your first ever logon.
The theory is that Experian, Banks, etc have already physically checked who you are, so why should the government set up another office doing exactly the same thing - just rely on those other organisations. Having previously spent several weeks working with Experian to tie together my credit report (and I've only lived in two properties in the last 20 years) my confidence that any of the third parties will help reduce fraud is somewhere between slim and fuck all.