Salman Ladha

As a Product Marketing Manager, I’m responsible for communicating the value of identity for SaaS application builders and our public sector vertical. I’m particularly passionate about the role identity plays in accelerating business growth, promoting product adoption, and establishing trust. Outside of work, you can catch me reading, working out, or watching the latest Marvel movie.

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Modern identity can help the UK public sector deliver secure and user-friendly applications

The United Kingdom led countless pioneering advances in early computing history. It is a country of early adopters – and that's especially true for its government. 

The UK Government launched its first externally-facing website in 1994. Its first efforts were cautious and limited in scope. As its confidence and competence grew, Whitehall rapidly expanded its digital footprint. Not long after, you could apply for a passport, register to vote, and file a tax return, all without leaving the same centralized hub. 

In 2012, the Coalition Government launched the newest incarnation of its externally-facing web presence, dubbed gov.uk. This was more than a visual overhaul. This was a vastly more ambitious and expansive platform. It also represented a seismic shift in how public sector IT was built. 

Gone were the reliances of waterfall methodologies, costly external contractors, and proprietary software. Government IT projects would faithfully resemble their private-sector equivalents, with open source software widely used and applications built using agile methodologies. They put UX first, and developers agonized over aesthetics and accessibility. 

However, as Auth0's 2022 Public Sector Identity Index report demonstrates, there are several opportunities for improvement, particularly when it comes to how citizens authenticate and access vital government apps. 


## 88% Building External Applications

Auth0, in partnership with Market Connections, surveyed 200 UK IT leaders across local and national governments about their attitudes to identity and their priorities when developing digital citizen services. The [findings](https://auth0.com/resources/whitepapers/uk-public-sector-ciam) show local and national bodies have different perspectives when it comes to their priorities, their confidence when it comes to delivering a secure experience, and their attitude to authentication. 

Respondents from central and local government bodies were equally likely (64% each) to operate applications where the intended user is a member of the public. Both categories were equally likely to build external-facing applications (88% each).  

However, when we break down the data and focus on employee and vendor-focused applications, we notice a slight divergence in the data. Central government respondents were marginally more likely to build applications where the intended user is an external vendor (48% versus 42%). For the purpose of this survey, the term "external vendor" includes both private-sector suppliers and other government bodies. 

Those working in national government departments were similarly more likely to build and maintain applications for internal use. Almost three-quarters of respondents — 73% — reported operating applications intended for internal employees. 


## Mobile First Priorities, Low Confidence in Delivery

Although local and national respondents were equally likely to build citizen-focused external applications, we noticed several significant disparities in their priorities. Central government respondents were more likely to value user experience (UX) than their counterparts in local government. 

The most commonly-cited priority in this cohort was mobile availability (78% versus 65% for local government), followed by accessibility via computer (73% versus 61%), and "overall accessibility" (72% versus 74%). 

![Mobile First Priorities, Low Confidence in Delivery](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/24uCeR7yhZbNmMpbFE7v3v/c2245aa707cc9d83b5242357ed06ac39/Passwordless-Authentication-sep1.jpg)

Despite these lofty goals, neither cohort described feeling confident about their ability to deliver on the items they cited as their biggest priorities. Local and central government respondents were equally pessimistic about their ability to provide an accessible mobile experience, with just 53% describing themselves as "extremely" or "very" confident. 

Perhaps surprisingly, central government respondents were vastly more likely to rank "cost reduction via process automation" as "very" or "extremely" important (68% versus 51%). According to the Institute for Government (IfG), local government funding dropped by 16% between 2010 and 2020. 

The IfG notes that local governments face increased demand for social care services but are limited in their abilities to generate additional revenue. Just 12% of taxes are collected locally in the UK, compared to 30% in Germany and 50% in Canada. Compounding this problem, block funding from Westminster dropped by 37% in the 2010 to 2020 period, whereas council tax rates soared by 25%. Poorer regions (including Merseyside, Northumberland, and Pembrokeshire) faced the biggest overall hikes.

Digitization and process automation can help councils use their increasingly-diminishing funds more efficiently, deliver better value to taxpayers, and meet the challenges of an aging population. Achieving this goal, however, may prove elusive. Just 50% of local government respondents, and 45% of those surveyed from national bodies, said they felt "very" or "extremely" confident in their ability to deliver on this point. 


## Local Government Leading on Biometric and MFA 

Unsurprisingly, usernames and passwords were the leading authentication method for citizen applications, as reported by 89% of central government respondents and 80% of the local government cohort. 

The data showed significant discrepancies between local and central government bodies when it came to their use of more modern and secure authentication methods. Local government bodies were significantly more likely to use biometric or passwordless authentication (24% versus 11%) and reported higher rates of two-factor authentication usage (66% versus 52%). 

Local governments were marginally more likely to report using in-house CIAM solutions (31% versus 27%) and more likely to report scaling, deployment, and compatibility issues. Almost half of the local government respondents said they lacked the resources to adapt their IAM solution to the various apps used by citizens, employees, and external partners. 40% reported compatibility issues, and 44% complained about a slow time to implementation. 

![Local Government Leading on Biometric and MFA](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/3DuYOoznWG10geDOeYwBVm/02b5dbc23075eebf4d984f22dbaaec76/Passwordless-Authentication-sep2.jpg)

Despite that, respondents from both central and local governments reported high levels of enthusiasm for a centralized IAM system, where users and stakeholders use a single credential throughout all their touchpoints. Additionally, both cohorts were roughly aligned on their vision for what such a system would ultimately look like, with privacy, interoperability, and user experience all listed as urgent priorities. 

One point of divergence is in backward compatibility, with local government respondents vastly more likely (73% versus 56%) to value solutions that would allow them to use their existing databases rather than migrate to a new system. This trend is likely indicative of the prevalence of legacy systems in local government and the comparatively lower availability of IT resources. 


## How Modern Identity Can Help 

The UK pioneered digital citizen services, setting the benchmark for other nations to beat. Adopting a modern approach to identity can further expand upon those early successes and ensure its leading status endures for years to come. 

Commercial off-the-shelf identity solutions like Auth0 can help local and central government bodies accelerate their time-to-market while ensuring the security and usability of services. 

Auth0's platform uses open standards such as OpenID Connect, OAuth2, Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), and Fast Identity Online Alliance (FIDO), ensuring compatibility with existing applications. It includes essential security features, like Adaptive MFA, Brute Force Protection, and Breached Password Protection. And with capabilities like WebAuthn Passwordless authentication, governments can accelerate the rollout of UX and security-boosting identity features. 

To learn more about the state of identity and access management in the UK public sector, check out our [whitepaper](https://auth0.com/resources/whitepapers/uk-public-sector-identity-index-report-2022).

Delivering Value for Money with Modern Identity

dean-scontras

Dean Scontras has spent the last two decades in public sector sales roles at high-growth cybersecurity and technology companies, including Duo Security, MobileIron, and Hewlett-Packard. Currently, Dean sits on the advisory board of Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC) and DiversifyIT. Prior to joining Auth0, he served as the vice president of U.S. Public Sector at Duo Security (acquired by Cisco), leading federal, state, local, and education sales initiatives, alongside securing the company’s successful FedRAMP certification.

VP, State and Local Government and Education, Okta and Auth0

Dean Scontras

Consumers expect seamless, high-value digital experiences, including with the public sector.

What does it mean to build digital services that citizens both use and trust? From the local to the national, generating effective digital transformation and [getting citizens onboard with digital public services](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740624X18304131) has been a challenge. The promise of digital government has often been muddled by institutional inertia and perceptions of government as slow-moving and bureaucratic. At the same time, positive initiatives, such as the [Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment](https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/document.cfm?doc_id=47559), which embrace objectives as wide-ranging as improved service delivery, greater efficiency, increased transparency, interoperability, and citizen satisfaction, have begun to remove entrenched ambivalence about e-government. Modern GovTech is where these barriers collide, creating the opportunity to address newly accelerated consumer demand in the face of private-sector conveniences and the [consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic](https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/public-sector/government-digital-transformation-strategy.html). 

GovTech, according to public sector entities such as [the World Bank](https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/govtech), is a technology-based “government approach to public sector modernization.” The same definition emphasizes three core areas for modernization: universal accessibility, citizen-centric services, the delivery of efficient and transparent government systems, and finally, digital transformation, all of which rely on overcoming long-cited barriers to adoption and success, such as [citizens’ willingness to use and trust services](https://doi.org/10.1145/2096140.2096142).

GovTechs, an umbrella term for technology-based solutions (and the companies behind them) that power the technical aspects of digital transformation, can be a bridge between use and trust and learning to [see citizens as customers](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/building-the-tech-enabled-government-of-the-future-a-day-1-list-of-common-pitfalls).


## Changing User Expectations 

In a pure consumer context, choice and convenience rule: you can easily go online and search, comparison shop, and buy a desired product in a few clicks without thinking about any of the complexity of the transaction. Consumers naturally transfer their positive consumer expectations to all of their digital experiences,[ according to McKinsey, raising the bar for government entities](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/digital-public-services-how-to-achieve-fast-transformation-at-scale). 

But how many consumers have enjoyed the convenience of one-click (or similarly easy) citizen services, such as reviewing and paying utility bills, filing income taxes, or having a streamlined, one-stop car-and-driver licensing experience? Or, for example, registering for unemployment benefits digitally, making the physical queue at the unemployment office shorter and more efficient for those going through the process in person? 

Rapid change has led to the expectation that public sector services offer private-sector-rivaling availability, choice, and convenience, which overrides previous consumer doubts about public sector readiness. 

Driving GovTech strategy in complex public sector environments demands a delicate balance between overarching strategic questions and the nitty-gritty of implementation. For example, this balance could be examining the[ underpinnings of transformation](https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/pdf-90/accenture-govtech-pov.pdf) strategically, such as public expectations, financial considerations, accessibility, demographics, and sustainability, against the competing operational demands of introducing new technology into hierarchical, political, and often change-resistant environments. Practically, such implementations involve extensive political and stakeholder management and support, consideration of legacy investments and programs, and a well-defined plan for rolling out proposed changes and the downstream effects these may have, whether positive or negative. 

Ultimately, the strategy for selecting and implementing GovTech solutions and providers rests with public sector employees who are responsible for the strategic and tactical approaches described and for meeting consumers’ increasingly private-sector-style expectations. This is redefining how governments interact with citizens. 

Three core considerations highlight how uniquely demanding delivering on these expectations can be for government agencies:

### 1. Deliver on citizens’ demands and expectations. 
Government digital transformation is different from its private-sector counterpart. Historically,[how consumers perceive and use public and private sector services has differed](http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/IJIDE.2019010102). However, societal changes stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic and the attendant shift to living life almost 100% online have resulted in heightened citizen expectations for public services to be available digitally in the same way as online shopping and food delivery. As a result, old barriers against citizens' willingness and ability to use e-gov services have declined significantly. 

### 2. Balance privacy and user experience. 
More fundamentally, the private sector is driven by consumer demand and choice, incentivized by increasing profit and reducing cost. While the public sector shares these concerns, because citizens often do not have a choice in deciding whether to interact with the government, the government’s primary aim is to provide services to citizens efficiently while building trust, safeguarding citizens’ data privacy, and ensuring compliance with regulations, mandates, and standards to which government agencies are tied. Trust remains an important issue for consumer-citizens, who[ perceive a level of risk in exposing their private data to public entities in ways they don’t when dealing with private entities](https://www.ey.com/en_no/government-public-sector/how-can-digital-government-connect-citizens-without-leaving-the-disconnected-behind). For public sector agencies, privacy concerns have historically taken precedence over user experience, but they need to prioritize privacy and security over user experience and convenience is beginning to change as GovTechs offer secure solutions leveraging modern infrastructure and economies of scale that facilitate both outcomes at a lower overall cost.

### 3. Make public services accessible to all citizens. 
The rapid digitization of society champions convenience above all, but digital-only approaches can create [accessibility blindspots](https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/accessibility-making-government-work-better/55530/) and [exacerbate the digital divide](https://www.ey.com/en_au/government-public-sector/how-can-clever-governments-choose-to-close-the-digital-divide). Government agencies must serve _all_ citizens, which means designing for everyone or else disenfranchise citizens who do not have access to digital services, devices, or connectivity. 

## How Can GovTech Enable These Citizen Experiences? 

Government agencies want to deliver on these citizen expectations because the agency benefits by achieving its mission, improving efficiency, and reaching all of its citizens — ultimately benefiting citizens. 

“A valuable function of government is providing all constituents with equal opportunity to access different services. By enhancing government with modern technologies, citizens are presented with multiple paths to the same services. These paths can now be both digital and in-person avenues, allowing the government to be more efficient in providing the right access to the right group of people,” Auth0’s Jeet Shah, Identity Architect, and Senior Solutions Engineer explains. “GovTechs introduce options for how citizens are served, allowing governments to dedicate resources more effectively. Citizens who prefer interacting with their governments online allow in-person services to be more accessible and can ultimately improve the quality. GovTech vendors and what they provide to governments ultimately leads to better services for all constituents.” 

GovTech grows from two branches: the first is the services governments offer to their citizens, the second is the vendors that enable those services. Governments furnish services in line with citizen expectations, which brings together these two branches.

### Government services to citizens: Focus on usability and trust

At the heart of delivering efficient public services is the ability to unify disparate, siloed departments and functions under a single sign-in. Forcing citizens to keep track of and maintain access to multiple portals and sites creates friction and disincentivizes use while also introducing the greater potential for security vulnerabilities and data privacy breaches. 

At the same time, maintaining this fractured setup is less efficient, potentially open to fraud, and forfeits opportunities for fostering citizen trust and personalizing user experiences. For example, imagine being able to offer all citizen services through a centralized digital portal or app with a single sign-on experience. From license renewal to viewing existing permits to paying bills, governments can leverage GovTech that enable these features and gather user analytics simultaneously to feedback into personalization efforts and a deeper understanding of citizen needs and wants.

## Identity Jumpstarts GovTech Services

[Various barriers have slowed technology-driven public sector transformation](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57599-1_4) over the past two decades. Many of these barriers, such as embedded organizational and cultural issues, existing processes, and legacy structures and infrastructure, persist regardless of technology. The impetus to accelerate the pace of change, however, has positioned GovTech to play a key role in helping to overcome some of these barriers. 

Identity enables all levels of government to bring their services to more citizens via the channels they prefer and already have access to. If the barrier faced is the difficulty of use, unified identity simplifies usability for both the government agency and the citizen user. If the barrier is trust, secure and transparent identity technologies can breakthrough. 

### Vendor service enablers: Auth0 for unifying identity

Auth0 is a GovTech vendor that, in this case, acts as an umbrella, freeing government agencies from service and platform fragmentation by bringing them together under a single, flexible sign-on solution. By reducing infrastructural complexity and providing options government agencies can use to offer services across multiple vectors, Auth0 helps public sector entities to expand the base of citizens who can access their services. 

By doing the heavy lifting of the platform and digital identity consolidation, Auth0 enables governments to reorganize and reprioritize resource allocation for more efficient processes – dedicating resources to digitizing what is possible and improving those that cannot be digitized.

If you’d like to learn more about how identity can accelerate digital change and invite citizens along for the journey, please get in touch with the [team at Auth0](https://auth0.com/contact-us).

What is GovTech?

auziros:jeana-tahnk

Jeana has been in the tech industry for 15+ years, both as a communications professional and writer. As Director of Global Communications at Auth0, she works with her internal team and external agencies to amplify the company's visibility worldwide and establish its leadership in the identity industry. When she is not working, she can most likely be found on a field watching one of her three kids playing sports, or cleaning up after her one-year-old retriever who chews everything.

Senior Director, Global Communications

Jeana Tahnk

Global identity management provider recognized for commitment to government, education, and nonprofit customer success

**BELLEVUE, Wash. – April 14, 2021 –** The [Auth0](https://auth0.com/) Identity Platform, a product unit within Okta, today announced that it has joined the [Amazon Web Services (AWS) Public Sector Partner (PSP) Program](https://aws.amazon.com/partners/public-sector/). The AWS PSP Program recognizes AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners with solutions and experience in delivering government, education, and nonprofit customer missions around the world.

Auth0 and AWS are teaming up to help serve public sector customers in solving their unique security, privacy, and user experience challenges to meet mandates, reduce costs, drive efficiencies, and accelerate innovation. As an AWS Public Sector Partner, Auth0 now offers its extensible authentication and authorization solutions to the public sector community on the AWS Marketplace. To be selected for the program, Auth0 had to meet pre-defined criteria, including deep expertise and commitment to delivering government, education, and nonprofit services on a global basis. 

“We are honored to join the AWS PSP Program—this recognition reflects Auth0’s commitment to helping the global public sector community,” said Bill Lapcevic, VP of Business Development at Auth0. “As a Public Sector Partner, we are enabling public sector customers to accelerate their business growth on AWS, and are in a unique position to help these customers achieve their cloud security goals as they scale.”

In addition, Auth0 announced the appointment of Dean Scontras, Senior Director of Public Sector Sales, to lead the company’s federal, state, and local business and sales strategy.

“For the public sector, in particular, the onset of COVID-19 has accelerated the transition to digital citizen services, and heightened the need for organizations across all industries to secure their valued assets and data more firmly,” said Scontras. “I’m honored to join the Auth0 team and aid the company’s continued efforts in helping government agencies at the local, state, and federal level as they move towards digital citizen services and the essential role identity will play in that move.” 

Auth0 is an AWS Advanced Technology Partner that is participating in [AWS Public Sector Summit Online](https://aws.amazon.com/events/summits/online/public-sector/?did=ep_card&trk=ep_card), taking place April 15, 2021. To learn more, visit: [https://info.auth0.com/auth0-at-aws-publicsectorsummit-2021.html](https://info.auth0.com/auth0-at-aws-publicsectorsummit-2021.html)

Auth0 achieved the [AWS Security Competency](https://auth0.com/blog/auth0-achieves-aws-security-competency/) status in 2020 and was one of the first AWS Partners to give AWS customers seamless access to [professional services in AWS Marketplace](https://auth0.com/blog/auth0-supports-the-launch-of-professional-services-in-aws-marketplace/). For more information, visit [Auth0’s AWS Partner page](https://partners.amazonaws.com/partners/001E000000YKGRTIA5/Auth0). 

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### Media Contacts
Global Communications 
Auth0 
[press@auth0.com](mailto:press@auth0.com) 

Matter for Auth0 
[auth0@matternow.com](mailto:auth0@matternow.com)

"public-sector"