[LINK] Single sign-on for govt services

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
I wonder how this intersects with the access card. It seems to have 
similar goals.

<quote>
The scheme, ... will provide access to services through a single sign-on 
on a single portal - the government's australia.gov.au site - rather 
than having to navigate multiple websites and have to re-enter personal 
details each time.
</quote>

</brd>

Single sign-on for govt services
Roland Tellzen
MAY 03, 2007
Australian IT
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21663706%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

AUSTRALIANS will be able to use personalised single sing-on accounts 
next year to access government services over the internet under a $42.4 
million scheme announced at the CeBIT technology trade show yesterday.

The scheme, announced by Special Minister for State Gary Nairn, will 
provide access to services through a single sign-on on a single portal - 
the government's australia.gov.au site - rather than having to navigate 
multiple websites and have to re-enter personal details each time.

Speaking at CeBIT's e-government forum yesterday, Mr Nairn said 
Australians were becoming increasingly comfortable with accessing public 
services online, with more than 500,000 citizens accessing 
australia.gov.au a month.

"We think it will be about one in three Australians that access it 
within a couple of years," he said.

Mr Nairn told AustralianIT the single sign-on scheme would likely start 
to be operational early next year.

"We anticipate that things have already been done in anticipation of 
this move will be there pretty quickly," he said. "Already, the 
Department of Human Services has linked together their agencies like 
education, Medicare, and Centrelink and we're also likely to see areas 
like the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and Veterans Affairs join 
early - departments that are already used to lots of dealings with the 
public."

It will be an opt-in service and Mr Nairn said strict security and 
privacy standards would be ensured and the new service would require no 
changes to existing legislation.

Mr Nairn also flagged a future role for government services to make more 
use of community and interactive internet services features commonly 
known as Web 2.0.

In particular, he said, web-logging, or blogging, could play a future 
role in citizen interaction with government.

"Blogs offer an area to get feedback from citizens and to debate issues 
in reasonable detail," Mr Nairn said. "They can also lead to a new area 
of citizen interraction.

"For example, Australians in the city can learn more about life and 
challenges facing people in rural areas and the bush, and rural people 
can get more of an idea of the issues facing people in the cities."

Mr Nairn told AustralianIT that initial trials of blogging would begin 
"sooner rather than later" and certainly before this year's Federal 
Election.

"We would probably start with things like comments on Government Papers 
that we now put out in a traditional sense for comment," he said.

"We might even have a blog to get ideas about blogging itself to get an 
idea about potential problems with it, and opportunities."

The Australian


-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au