2022 Public Sector Identity Index Report

Methodology

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

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

To identify and quantify:

• The current state of identify authentication and security
• Challenges to current implementation
• Current pain points
• Plans and concerns over changing systems and processes

Auth0 has released the findings of its first Public Sector Identity Index, a global research report that provides government technology leaders with insight into the identity maturity of public sector organizations around the world. The report highlights the importance of a centralized identity strategy in putting safe and accessible services into the hands of citizens faster.

Over the past two years, many public sector organizations were prompted by the immediate need to deploy digital infrastructure to maintain continuity of their services amid the COVID-19 pandemic — such as offering citizens license renewals online and virtual education — and are now grappling with the impacts on cybersecurity and user experience.

The 2022 Public Sector Identity Index, conducted by Auth0 and Market Connections, captures the perceptions of 850 IT and line of business decision-makers within national and state/local government organizations across the U.S., UK, and ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) with regard to their Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategy.

The report’s key findings include:

• Only one in five are extremely confident in either the security (17%) or ease of use (19%) of their current authentication solution.
• Username and password is the most frequently used authentication method by citizens (86%), compared to very little usage of biometric or passwordless authentication (16%).
• Four in ten are currently building their own IAM solution in-house (41%) and cite speed to implementation (83%) and using internal staff to manage IAM internally (82%) as two of the biggest pain points in doing so.
• Most governments are looking to expand their digital services in the next two years (75%) and rank protecting citizen’s privacy and data as most important when thinking about citizen services (73%).