Identity is at the core of most government business processes and is the starting point for trust and confidence in interactions between people and their government. Tim Bouma and Dave Roberts, senior public servants with the Government of Canada, outline how traditional identity management within government is evolving to SSI.
This chapter provides an overview of how the elements of SSI are being adapted and developed to fit within the Canadian public sector context with the intention of effecting institutional change across different levels of government. This institutional change is about more than just adopting new technology; it requires putting in place the right policies, guidance, and frameworks that can drive change in a way that balances compliance, innovation, and agility.
The Government of Canada issued its first identity management policy in 2009, and for more than a decade, it has been working with provincial, territorial, and municipal jurisdictions to develop the Pan-Canadian Trust Framework (PCTF). The PCTF achieves several objectives: it supports policy requirements, enables the interoperability of many digital identity programs across different levels of government, and outlines how legacy identity technologies and SSI can coexist.