NY CIO Council: Federated approach to ID and access management

New York's CIO Council will release a roadmap document for identification and access management that advocates a federated approach, much like Visa takes for credit card verification, the Digital Communities site reports. The site notes the benefits of this approach:

New York - probably like many states - currently uses a hodgepodge of approaches. A state CIO Council survey found:

• There's no uniform process for establishing user identification
• There's no regular recertification of identifications
• There's no single identification process within an agency, which means too many workers are dealing with too many passwords
• Passwords are the most common form of identification and access control
• Some biometrics are being used for IAM
• The amount of information being shared across agencies and governments is increasing significantly.

 The standards-based federated approach offers fixes for most of these issues:

• A simpler way to grant and revoke user access to information
• A reduction in the number of sign-ons and passwords an individual must work with to access multiple systems and databases
• Greater security when it comes to user access to information
• The elimination of complex, bilateral data sharing rules and structures between different levels of government.