The epass Solution

Challenges and Requirements of On-Line Authentication:
The "epass" Solution

May 23, 2003

Abstract

The Government of Canada's Government On-Line service has been established to provide Canadian residents with secure on-Line access to government services. With proper safeguards, this provision of access has been extended to areas in which government departments allow individuals and businesses to fill out forms and update personal information on-line, e.g., their addresses. Clearly this is only feasible when users can securely and uniquely identify themselves to the system. They must be confident that no other persons can gain access to, or change, their personal information. To permit this level of personal security, the government has implemented the "epass" system, which allows secure authentication of individuals wishing to gain on-line access to government programs and services. Epass also allows other categories of secure access, e.g., access for authorized employees of businesses dealing with government departments on-line.

Secure and workable authentication systems must meet stringent requirements and yet not be cumbersome to use. They must allow users to substantiate their identities with unique information, but must also make provision for re-establishment of authentication if users forget or lose unique identifiers or passwords. It must be possible for users to rapidly revoke their authenticated on-line access if their passwords or electronic credentials have been lost, stolen, or otherwise compromised. Very importantly, government-operated authentication systems must meet the needs of citizens in a democracy to restrict the use of personal information available to the government and its employees, so that personal privacy is not compromised. Authentication systems must be designed to avoid using informational items such as the social insurance number as on-line identifiers. They must also prevent on-line identifiers being used as a means of cross-linking information in diverse government program databases in order to form a comprehensive dossier on users. As additional safeguards to prevent correlation of personal data, users should be able to establish multiple, independent access credentials, and, where feasible, to have pseudonymous on-line access.

Well designed on-line authentication systems are a form of infrastructure and may be relatively complex, potentially using sophisticated technologies such as digital signatures. They are best designed when they meet both privacy concerns and practical business criteria such as user-friendliness, efficiency and scalability. Both for these purposes and to allow maximization of security and confidentiality, it is best that they be designed in a comprehensive way, rather than being cobbled together out of a patchwork of smaller, ad hoc systems. The epass system meets all of these criteria, and also has the potential to interact successfully with interlinked provincial, territorial and municipal systems.