Foreword

New Zealand's e-government programme uses new technologies and processes to help public sector agencies work together to meet the needs of New Zealanders. The e-government mission is that:

• By June 2004, the Internet will be the dominant means of enabling ready access to government.
• By June 2007, networks and Internet technologies will be integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes.
• By June 2010, the operation of government will have been transformed through its use of the Internet.

This transformation of government will be characterised by agencies taking an all-of-government approach when designing and implementing services, and by the customisation of services to meet the needs of individuals and businesses.

Achieving this, and providing more sophisticated government services via the Internet, means that agencies and people need to be confident in the trustworthiness of online services. The basis for public confidence in dealing with government online is consistent authentication policies and technologies that enable both individuals and agencies to have confidence in the identity of each other when transacting over the Internet.

The Government approved a set of policy and implementation principles for online authentication in April 2002. Since then, the E-government Unit of the State Services Commission, with input from relevant experts and agency supporters, has been working on an online authentication solution for e-government in New Zealand.

This Best Practice Framework has been developed to summarise the lessons and learnings to date. Whilst work continues on an all-of-government solution, the Framework will allow those individual agencies that have an immediate need for online authentication to proceed with confidence in the steps they take now.

I commend this Best Practice Framework to agencies and encourage them to adopt its recommended approaches. Adopting 'best practice' in this area is an important step as we move towards an all-of-government solution to online authentication.

State Services Commissioner

April 2004