Project Overview

At Lac Carling in May 2003, the governments of Ontario and Canada presented a framework for identification, authentication and authorization that was generic and transferable. As a result of the input received from the Lac Carling Congresses, the Public Sector CIO Council (PSCIOC) and the Public Sector Service Delivery Council (PSSDC) tasked a multi-jurisdictional working group to develop common terminology and to identify, develop and propose identification, authentication and authorization standards that facilitate seamless, cross-jurisdictional electronic service delivery.

Click here, to download a discussion paper on Identity, Authentication and Authorization in Electronic Service Delivery - an Ontario Perspective. (version français ici)

To deliver on service delivery transformation that is customer-focused, seamless and convenient there is an urgent need to find ways to recognize and accept electronic credentials across jurisdictions. It is broadly understood among governments who have pursued interoperability that there are a number of components that need to be in place for true interoperability to be successful.

To this end, the IAA Working Group is working towards a framework that is cross-jurisdictional, technology neutral, and respectful of the policy and legal framework of each jurisdiction.

This initiative has Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments working jointly to address common priorities and simpler, more integrated access to government information and services.

The results will have broad implications for access and privacy, information classification and security, as well as being a key enabler to leverage each jurisdiction’s information technology infrastructure for the secure exchange of information.

So far it has been clear that the challenges of establishing guidelines, achieving inter-operability, and addressing security and privacy grow in complexity very quickly.

The next stepswill continue to proceed with building the standards framework (e.g., definitions, guidelines, and governance) specific to the needs of cross jurisdictional authentication.

A consultation draft of the proposed authentication guidelines has been released to seek feedback on the proposed framework from all stakeholders, including Federal, Provincial and Municipal Government agencies and privacy groups. You are invited to provide comments.