Managing Identities: from goverment e-commerce to national security

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the challenges and issues facing US State and Federal government in attempting to develop, implement and maintain electronic identity managament systems. Primary data was collected from four key stakeholders in two US States and from five key stakeholders at the US Federal government (two 'agencies'). A qualitative analysis identifies four dominant themes and a trend that is shifting government identity management efforts from supporting government e-commerce transactions to improving national security. Central to this trend are key structural changes in the Federal management and budgeting of identity management initiatives. Projects that involved multi-million dollar investments in facilitating government e-Commerce transactions appear to have lost momentum, putting those huge investments at risk. Furthermore, the research findings suggest that US government electronic identity implementers depend heavily on exogenous standards, with anecdotal evidence indicating that this may be a very risky approach.