CIAM in Australia

and New Zealand

Digital authentication tools lead to safe
and secure citizen engagement
W H I T E PA P E R
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 2 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

Contents

Introduction

Key focus areas for government 04

Citizen experience 04

Security 06

Building digital authentication tools 07

Other priorities and confidence in delivery 09

Improving existing services 09

Speed in adding new services 09

Scalable solutions 10

CIAM authentication methods 10

Build versus buy 12

Conclusion 13

About the study 13

About Auth0 13

About Okta 14
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About Market Connections 14

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 3 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

Introduction
A recent study of citizens in Australia and New Zealand
(ANZ) showed that between March 2020 and March
2021, as more people stayed at home, an average of
38% of Australians and 52% of New Zealanders engaged
with digital government services weekly or more than
once a week. The study also notes that overall, citizen
expectations for frictionless government services are
increasing.1

A key component of meeting citizen expectations is

customer identity access management (CIAM). For
government, CIAM supports goals of security, privacy,
citizen experience and beyond. In fact, it is the foundation
upon which innovation in citizen services and security are
built.

To assess trends in CIAM adoption in Australia and New

Zealand, Auth0 engaged Market Connections to design
a survey to identify and quantify the current state of
identify authentication and security, challenges to current
implementation, current pain points, and plans and
concerns over changing systems and processes
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1 “Trust Imperative 2: This time it’s personal.” A BCG study of 3,000

citizens in ANZ, full report at https://www.bcg.com/en-au/personalised-
services-government-customer-benefits
 4 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

Key focus areas

As more citizens use digital services, a solid identity solution will ensure security
internally and citizen participation externally. Respondents note citizen experience and
security as key focus areas.

Citizen experience

Knowing what citizen preferences are — such as security, privacy and a frictionless
experience — is massively important. The majority of ANZ government organisations
build external-facing applications. To date 12% of respondents have all their services
currently available digitally and 78% have some services available digitally and are
looking to expand.

Current State of Digitizing Citizen Services

1 in 10 Over 3/4 have some available and

looking to expand in next 2 years
Currently have all
services available
78%
digitally
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 5 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

Username and Password

Credentials are Still the 87%
Leading Authentication Still use username & password
(easiest to guess and hack)
Method for Digital
Government Services 58%
Use multi-step authentication
Despite the Well (better)

Documented Security Risks

HOWEVER, ONLY

12%
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Use biometric or
password-less solution
AND ONLY

11%
Use social login

To use digital services, citizens must access them. Only a little over half (53%) use a
single digital credential, and a little over two-thirds (67%) say having a single credential
across services is largely important. Given citizen expectations for customer experience,
both numbers should be higher. It does not matter if you are interacting with the taxation
office or Department of Education, it is all part of the government. Citizens do not want to
feel the friction of cross-agency applications. Single access also eliminates the need to
remember multiple passwords and login credentials. Finally, it establishes trust between
citizens and governments.
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 6 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

Security

The data shows most government organisations are spending their own time, energy and
resources to build authentication tools on-premises. More than half (56%) currently build
their own CIAM solutions in-house, and 23% currently are responsible for providing CIAM
solutions to other departments. As a result, respondents are finding that speed to
implementation is slow; it is costly to tie up internal resources for CIAM, and solutions are
not compatible with all their applications.

FOR CITIZEN SERVICES

Overall, Three-Quarters Consider the Following

Aspects Important
Security, Interoperability, Adaptability and User Experience Among
Key Aspects
■ Important/Extremely Important ■ Confident/Extremely Confident

Protecting citizens’ privacy and data Balancing security with user experience
% %
% %

Minimizing friction for the customer Accessibility of services via mobile

% %
% %

Securing digital citizen services Ensuring citizens’ trust in digital services

% %
% %

When developing apps, speed in adding new services and minimising friction are
important goals, but respondents have lower confidence in their ability to meet those
goals. What this means in practice is that in-house teams are spending time focusing on
CIAM when they could be focusing on innovation and citizen services.
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 7 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

Build versus buy

Using internal resources is one of the biggest pain points in building IAM solutions in-
house, more so for states and territories than for the federal government. Almost half
(48%) say they do not have enough staff or resources to manage CIAM internally, and
more than half (52%) say it is costly to tie up IT resources with CIAM.

TO FREE UP RESOURCES

The Challenges of Building and Maintaining Identity

In-house Deter Innovation and Citizen Value

Resources and Expertise Often Viewed

MORE THAN
as High Pain Points to Building and Maintaining
1/2 of national IAM In-house
agencies
Speed to implementation very slow 52%
AND NEARLY

6 in 10 of state Costly to tie up IT resources with IAM 52%

and local agencies Solutions not compatible with all applications 51%
building IAM
solutions in-house Not enough staff/resources to manage internally 48%

Don’t have expertise to manage internally 44%

Current solutions not scalable 44%

Don’t have resources to adapt to each application 40%

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‘The persistent tech skill shortage in ANZ means that there’s a scarcity of developers, not
least in the public sector. Outsourcing identity management to third party experts can
help the government create great digital experiences for citizens without needing to keep
an army of specialist engineers in house. This not only saves public time and resources
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but, most crucially, frees up government bodies to focus on delivering value to citizens’,
said Richard Marr, APAC Regional Director at Okta.
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 8 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

Internal resource allocation impacts speed in adding new services, and it is costly to tie
up your IT resources with CIAM. The Auth0/Okta solution solves the problem because it is
compatible with all apps and is scalable and interoperable. You do not need experts to be
utilising all CIAM.

Conclusion
Meeting long-term goals means focusing more on the citizen services you are promising
to deliver. That is where a CIAM expert like Auth0/Okta can help. The benefit of using an
Auth0/Okta solution that is focused only on identity management pieces of security and
citizen engagement is that you get a framework that allows adapting solutions in stages,
interoperability with legacy systems and interoperability with all our systems.

Getting the digital customer experience right is key for the public sector across both
central and local government. Implementing a tool that provides secure, frictionless CIAM
can help public sector organisations reach overall mission goals.
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 9 CIAM in Australia and New Zealand

About the study

Auth0 engaged Market Connections to design an online survey of 850 IT and line of
business decision-makers within national and state and local governments in the US (200
federal, 200 state and local), UK (100 federal, 100 local), and ANZ (155 federal, 95 state
and local), fielded in September–October 2021.

About Auth0

Auth0, a product unit within Okta, takes a modern approach to identity and enables
organisations to provide secure access to any application, for any user. The Auth0
Identity Platform is highly customisable – it is as simple as development teams want and
as flexible as they need. Safeguarding billions of login transactions each month, Auth0
delivers convenience, privacy and security so customers can focus on innovation. For more
information, visit auth0.com.

About Okta

Okta is the leading independent identity provider. The Okta Identity Cloud enables
organisations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right
time. With more than 7,000 pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure
providers, Okta provides simple and secure access to people and organisations
everywhere, giving them the confidence to reach their full potential. More than 14,000
organisations, including JetBlue, Nordstrom, Siemens, Slack, Takeda, Teach for America
and Twilio, trust Okta to help protect the identities of their workforces and customers.

About Market Connections

A performance platform of GovExec, Market Connections delivers actionable intelligence

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and insights that enable improved business performance and positioning for leading
businesses, trade associations and the public sector. The custom market research firm is
a sought-after authority on preferences, perceptions and trends among the public sector
and the contractors who serve them, offering deep domain expertise in information
technology and telecommunications, healthcare, and education. For more information,
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visit: marketconnectionsinc.com.
 Auth0 provides a platform to authenticate, authorize,
and secure access for applications, devices, and
users. Security and development teams rely on Auth0’s
simplicity, extensibility, and expertise to make identity
work for everyone. Safeguarding more than 4.5
billion login transactions each month, Auth0 secures
identities so innovators can innovate, and empowers
global enterprises to deliver trusted, superior digital
experiences to their customers around the world.

For more information, visit https://auth0.com

or follow @auth0 on Twitter.

Copyright © 2022 by Auth0® Inc.

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