Solving identity management a 'game changer' for agencies
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The General Services Administration wants an identity management framework that can be used across the federal government.
The General Services Administration wants an identity management framework that can be used across the federal government.
Speaking at a Dec. 11 conference in Washington, D.C., Anil Cheriyan, director of GSA's Technology Transformation Service, called solving the challenge a "game changer."
This past summer, Cheriyan and TTS singled out identity management as a possible new core area for TSS' Centers of Excellence because agencies like the IRS, the Department of Education and the Social Security Administration need the capabilities. However, it has been a tough problem to solve because of the different ways agencies have approached identity management, as well as the policies surrounding it.
Although GSA has login.gov, which lets users log onto many government websites with one email and password combination and incorporates two-factor authentication, Cheriyan said he wants a more-comprehensive framework for identity management across government. GSA, he said, doesn't want to own the ultimate result, but wants to facilitate the development of the capability.
"We want a fair amount of partnership between industry, TTS and the agencies," Cheriyan said, acknowledging that the effort could take years to develop. "We don't want to grow our team of 300 people. I don't want to be a Booz Allen. I want to be the core group that helps" manage the process.
"This is going to take some doing, working through," he said. "In the end it's a matter of using the [National Institute of Standards and Technology] standards on identity to resolve the different levels to build a common framework of what it will look like."
"This is going to be a four- or five-year journey," he said. "One agency could solve the problem on their own, but the real value in government is how you share."
As Cheriyan sees it, one agency could take the reins, champion a core framework for capabilities and ultimately offer it as a service to other agencies. The Department of Homeland Security, the IRS or SSA are big enough and have enough experience with identity management to serve as a "base camp" for the project, he said.
"It doesn't have to be GSA. It could be a shared service under one of those and they could be the arbiter of sharing data, of what can and can't be shared," he said. "I don't think getting all these agencies to buy into an answer is the way to start. It's more start with one agency and grow it out," he said.
"They view it as a 495 kind of bus," he said, referencing the Washington region's highway encircling the Capital city. In the U.S., he said, such a system could allow federal users to "hop on with IRS give them your credentials, and go off to different agency exits."
He added that he's not wedded to that model, however. "That's just a view. We have to establish what that view is," he said.
Cheriyan has said that TTS is "actively looking and having conversations with the financial services industry," which already has significant interests and capabilities in identity technologies and security practices. "There's a lot of critical, cool work that is going on in [the financial services] space," aimed at preventing and tracking electronic crime such as money laundering and fraud, he said.
Before coming to TTS, Cheriyan was CIO of SunTrust Banks.
Estonia's digital identification system might also inform the effort, Cheriyan said. European Union member Estonia's five-year-old e-residency program allows entrepreneurs in other EU countries secure access to its electronic business portals and information systems to start and manage companies in the nation.
This article was first posted to FCW, a sibling site to GCN.