Enabling and securing access to government services

Like other sectors, digital transformation accelerated across government agencies during the pandemic. At the same time, people have come to expect the ability to both transact and access support from local services anywhere, on any device, at any time of day, similar to mainstream consumer services.

However, one of the biggest challenges facing government agencies today is that data and applications are still stored and managed separately across rapidly expanding digital ecosystems, and often fail to communicate with one another.

Users have to sign in to each service separately, using a different user name and password. Agencies wishing to improve the user experience by integrating their back-end systems via a single web portal find that it is a costly and complicated process. Additionally, by integrating their systems and expanding the cyberattack threat surface, local government agencies may be exposed to greater risk of fraud and breaches.

The key to solving this problem lies in harnessing the power of a unified user identity for the benefit of both government agencies and the citizens and businesses they serve.

With a strong identity management platform, government agencies can tie all their disparate services together into one, cohesive service accessed through a single portal. Users access the portal only once, via a single sign-on, to access all services, such as renewing a driving licence or a passport, paying a fine or filing taxes.

Everyone – government agencies and users alike – benefits from enhanced service interactions, accelerated service deployment, and fewer fraudulent transactions. This includes faster support to critical services for citizens.

Employing citizen-focused identity and eliminating the traditional siloed approach to delivery allows government agencies to be more proactive in providing services and streamlining delivery.

In addition, citizens and businesses will see the immediate benefits and value of government agencies monitoring and managing their online behaviour on disparate devices such as laptops, mobile phones, tablets, wearable technology, or other connected innovations. At the same time, this approach future-proofs and provides a return on government agencies’ investments.

What is Citizen-Focused Identity Management?

Because public organisations are beholden to numerous regulatory compliance and privacy policies, they must leverage citizens’ identity to offer access safely and securely to a multitude of public and local services across any online (web, mobile) or offline (contact centre).

At the same time they also recognise the enormity of managing the digital identities of every citizen while simultaneously securing information and adhering to strict compliance policies as they transition sensitive, classified information to completely digitised systems.

Legacy identity access management (IAM) technologies have historically leveraged monolithic platforms that used static rules to make decisions. Such technologies were not designed to easily integrate with any application (on premise or off), to provide device-agnostic access, handle large-scale populations, or make decisions based on government policy and user context.

This explains why traditional IAM struggles to meet the need for accuracy, efficiency, security, and privacy. To connect citizens to necessary public services in the digital age, governments will now require citizen-focused identity management.

Modern Identity Management Delivers Many Advantages

• Bring services to citizens: citizens are not brought to services. Access from anywhere, from any device provides real-world value by enabling citizens and businesses, as this is how they expect to consume services today and into the future.
• Create a common, scalable, and secure identity platform across government services to provide access to services  across different departments while also protecting user privacy.
• Provide a common platform across departments that makes digital transformation easier, reduces time to value and the disruption caused by migration to any new IAM infrastructure. By reducing the attack plane, migration to new systems is easier, and gives citizens a better experience – including the ability to self-service.
• Deliver services more quickly and efficiently.
• Use real-time context to make access and security decisions and to offer personalized services based on citizen needs and profiles, and reduce the risk of identity fraud and breaches.
• Take advantage of a modular, scalable, and flexible architecture to facilitate repeatable processes, accommodate millions of concurrent users and devices, and enable deployment times faster than those of typical legacy systems.

Citizen-focused identity management uses identity to break down agency silos and create a single, agency-wide view of the citizen while also protecting user privacy. It uses data to build citizen profiles that help government agencies engage with citizens effectively.

Because this new identity management is specifically designed for citizens – built for flexibility, scale, and the IoT – it interacts with e-citizen portals and yet-to-be-invented technologies on which governments will rely in the years ahead. Understanding who these citizens are and what they need enables governments to provide more relevant and efficient services that vastly improve the user experience, which in turn allows further expansion of necessary services and initiatives that capitalise on this new user data.

Find out more about citizen-focused identity management here.