Proving Identity and Managing Accounts When Someone Can’t Do It Online

This one came from a family on our Facebook page, and once they said it, it was obvious how common it must be. Mum has never had a passport. Dad’s driving licence expired years ago. Now the bank, the DWP, the LPA service, or the GP’s online system wants photo ID or a login, and nobody in the family knows what to do next. Add in a parent who freezes at the words “security question,” and it becomes a wall.

There are routes through it. Some are free and quick. A couple of the obvious shortcuts are genuinely risky, and it’s worth knowing which before you use them. This guide covers both halves: proving who someone is when they have no photo ID, and helping with their accounts without breaking the bank’s rules.

First, check what the service actually needs

Not everything needs photo ID. Before you spend a week chasing documents, look at what the specific organisation will accept. Councils, the DWP and the NHS mostly work on paper or by phone if you ask. Banks vary a lot between each other. GOV.UK services increasingly route through One Login, which has more than one way in. Ask first, then gather what’s actually required.

Proving identity with no passport or driving licence

GOV.UK One Login. This is now the front door for over 100 government services, including checking State Pension, tax records and, for attorneys, the LPA service. There are three ways to prove identity, and only one of them works with no photo ID at all:

• The app: needs a passport or photocard driving licence.
• The Post Office in-branch check: also needs a passport or driving licence. It exists for people without a smartphone, not for people without ID. Worth knowing, because it’s often described as the “no ID” route and it isn’t.
• Security questions online: works if the person has a UK bank or building society current account. One Login checks their answers against credit-record and DWP information. This is the route for someone with a bank account but no passport. A wrong answer locks that method, so sit with them and take it slowly.

If someone has neither photo ID nor a current account, the service they’re trying to use will usually offer a way to prove identity without One Login, often paper forms or a phone call. Go back to that service’s own help page rather than fighting One Login.

A Voter Authority Certificate. Free, from the council, and it carries a photo. It was created so people without passports could vote, and some banks and organisations now accept it as general photo ID, though not all. Apply on GOV.UK or by post; the person must be registered to vote, and a digital photo can be taken on a phone. It usually arrives within a couple of weeks. Ask any organisation whether they accept it before relying on it.

A provisional driving licence. Anyone can apply, you never have to sit a lesson, and it’s a full photocard ID accepted almost everywhere. It costs £34 and needs a National Insurance number and a photo. For many older people this is the single most useful thing on this list, because it unlocks the One Login app and every bank.

What banks and building societies commonly accept instead. This varies, so call the branch first. Documents that regularly work: a full birth certificate together with something showing the National Insurance number (a P60, an HMRC or DWP letter); a benefit entitlement letter from the DWP, HMRC or the council; an older person’s bus pass with photo; a Blue Badge; a Northern Ireland electoral identity card. Take the originals, not photocopies, and recent proof of address as well. Some branches will do an in-person check with staff if the paperwork is borderline.

Helping with their accounts, the right way round

This is the half that catches people out. When a parent can’t manage online banking, the natural thing is for them to hand over the password and say “just do it for me.” It feels like the loving, practical answer. The problem is that almost every bank’s terms say the customer must not share their password or PIN with anyone, family included.

If the bank’s fraud systems notice a different device, a different pattern, or a different location, they can freeze the account first and ask questions later. In the worst cases it’s treated as suspected fraud, which is a horrible thing to be untangling while you’re also caring for someone. And if money ever does go missing through that shared login, the bank’s fraud protection may not apply. Nobody tells families this. It’s worth hearing plainly.

Third-party mandate. A form the account holder signs at their own bank, naming you as someone who can operate that account. It’s quick, usually set up in branch with both of you present, and it’s a genuine legal route. The limits: it only covers that one bank, it’s often restricted to everyday transactions, some banks make you renew it each year, and it stops being valid the moment the account holder loses mental capacity. If you keep using it after that point, you’re in breach of it. It’s a stop-gap, and a good one, while something longer-term is put in place.

Registering the Lasting Power of Attorney with the bank. If there’s a Property and Financial Affairs LPA in place, this is the proper long-term answer. It covers every bank, every account, and keeps working if capacity is lost. For LPAs registered since July 2020, the Office of the Public Guardian’s “Use a lasting power of attorney” service lets you generate a secure access code that many banks now accept online instead of posting the original document. Others still want to see the stamped original. Allow two to four weeks. Once it’s set up, the bank will usually give you your own login or card, so you’re never using theirs.

If there’s no LPA yet and the person still has capacity, that’s the thing to start now, even if you use a mandate in the meantime. Our Lasting Power of Attorney guide takes it step by step.

Passwords and the “blanking” problem. For everything that isn’t a bank, there’s a simpler, allowed fix: sit with them and reset the password to something they can actually remember, written in a small notebook kept somewhere safe at home. Security experts have stopped recommending complicated passwords for people who’ll forget them, because a forgotten password locks people out more often than it keeps anyone else out. Three unrelated words is fine. Where a site offers “remember this device,” use it on their own tablet or phone.

A practical order to do things in

1. Ask each organisation what they’ll actually accept. Write it down.
2. If they have no photo ID and there’s time, apply for a provisional licence or a Voter Authority Certificate. Both are straightforward and one of them will probably solve the next three problems too.
3. For the bank, set up a third-party mandate now if you need to act quickly, and register the LPA as the permanent arrangement.
4. Stop using their passwords. It’s the one habit here that can go wrong badly.
5. If they’re stuck at every turn, Citizens Advice will sit down and work through the specific documents they do have. That’s exactly what they’re for.

A word from The Care Compass

Everything about care assumes people can prove who they are and manage a login. Plenty of the generation now needing care never needed a passport, and did all their banking in a branch that’s since closed. That’s not a failing on their part. It’s a gap the system left, and families are quietly plugging it, sometimes in ways that put them at risk without knowing. The routes above are the safe ones. None of them is difficult once you know they exist.

This article is for general guidance only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Bank policies differ, and identity rules change: the routes described were checked against GOV.UK, Post Office and bank guidance in September 2026. Always confirm with the organisation concerned.

You don’t have to navigate it alone.