Security That Adapts to the Risk
Protection should match what is at stake. TRIDENT applies stronger checks where an action warrants them, and stays out of the way where it does not.
Checking when an application will be processed and authorising something with legal consequences are not the same kind of act. Treating them identically serves neither well.
TRIDENT is built so the level of protection follows what is actually at stake. Routine actions stay straightforward. Consequential ones ask for more before they proceed.
The aim isn't less security. It's security placed where it does the most good.
Why proportion matters
Protection has a cost, and it isn't only technical. Every additional step is time, and time is a barrier.
A system that demands the same effort for reading a notice as for authorising a legal commitment teaches people to hurry through both. The steps stop being a moment of attention and become an obstacle to get past. Proportion keeps them meaningful: when TRIDENT asks for more, there is a reason, and that reason is worth pausing for.
Different kinds of proof
There are three broad ways to establish that you are who you say you are.
Something you know, such as a personal code. Something you have, such as your TRIDENT ID Card or your registered phone. And something you are, such as your face.
TRIDENT supports several methods across these three kinds, and they don't all provide the same degree of assurance. That's why a service can require a particular method rather than accepting any of them, and why the strongest options are reserved for what needs them.
Two kinds are stronger than one
The most effective step isn't a longer code. It's requiring two different kinds of proof rather than two of the same kind.
You have already met an example. The TRIDENT ID Card's electronic functions will be protected by a personal code: something you have, together with something you know. Neither one on its own opens them.
The same logic applies digitally, and it can extend across a journey. You might sign in on a computer, confirm on your registered phone, and then, where an action calls for a signature, authorise it with your signing code. Each step contributes something the others don't, rather than repeating the same kind of proof.
Confirming at the moment it matters
Rather than making every session as demanding as the most sensitive thing you might do in it, TRIDENT can ask for an additional confirmation at the point where it's warranted, tied to that specific action.
In practice that looks like this.
Looking something up after signing in: nothing extra.
Changing your registered email address: a confirmation step, because a change like that affects where official correspondence goes.
Authorising something significant: a deliberate approval, tied to that specific action, so there is no ambiguity about what you agreed to.
The pattern is consistent. The more an action can affect you, the more explicit your involvement becomes.
Who decides how much is enough
The service does, within Government policy.
Each participating service determines the level of confidence its interactions require, based on what it handles and the rules that apply to it. TRIDENT provides the mechanisms; the institution responsible for a service decides where the thresholds sit. Two services can reach different conclusions about similar-looking actions, because their obligations differ.
Why you are not always asked
Part of what determines whether an extra confirmation is needed happens without asking anything of you. In general terms, it takes into account what the action is and what it can affect, the level of confidence the service requires for it, and whether you are using a device already registered to you.
What that assessment can do is bounded. It can lead to you being asked for an additional confirmation. It does not decide whether you are entitled to a service, and it is not used to refuse you without recourse. If a confirmation cannot be completed, assisted channels remain available.
For institutions and organisations
Ministries, agencies and authorised organisations can define their own authentication and access requirements according to the sensitivity of what they handle, including for staff-facing and higher-security systems, where the strongest available methods can be required.
The requirements remain theirs. What TRIDENT provides is a consistent way to apply them, so each service doesn't build its own interpretation of what "strong enough" means.
What protects all of this underneath?
The article Protecting the Foundations of Digital Trust explains the national trust infrastructure behind every TRIDENT interaction.