Authentication Standards

Authentication Standards is one of the three delivery projects in the current phase of the All-of-government Authentication Programme.

Standards are important because they provide a framework that promotes consistent authentication of identity by government agencies, regardless of whether agencies use the shared services being developed by the Authentication Programme or implement their own solutions.

The authentication standards are being developed to support the establishment and on-going confirmation of identity. For each service, agencies must determine the level of identity-related risk. This level corresponds to a level of confidence required to establish an individual's identity and to an authentication key that provides on-going verification of identity. Other standards define data formats for identity-related data and message formats for confirmation of identity.

The Standards

The Authentication Standards have been published as part of the E-government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF). They are now located in the e-GIF directory of this site.

Draft Standards

Draft versions of these standards have now been archived.