In its modern usage, Shibboleth refers to catchwords that distinguish members of a group from outsiders; it is an appropriate name, therefore, for a technology that is providing secure access to public sector resources.

Higher education advisory organisation the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) is using Shibboleth, an open source software development, to create a federated access management (FAM) system for education users.

The Jisc system will be launched in September and rolled out across education institutions over the next two years.

The technology provides a route to single sign-on for multiple resources in numerous departments, but it could be poised for wider application across the public sector, says Nicole Harris, programme manager at Jisc.

‘It is meeting a requirement that has been there for a long time in further and higher education,’ she says.

‘The technology is also proving itself to meet the requirements of government and the NHS.’

Harris says the eGovernment Unit (eGU) is interested in similar federated processes for Gateway, the service that provides multiple departments and agencies with a common authentication and transaction infrastructure.

She says the NHS is also keen to investigate the potential of using federated access to allow nurses and doctors to work alongside education institutions.

Philip Virgo, strategic adviser to user group the Institute for the Management of Information Systems, says identity management is the biggest issue surrounding the successful implementation of FAM in the public sector.

‘The government is talking about families of identity programmes – for example, one for tax, one for health and one for security, which could be the gold standard,’ he said.

Virgo says it is vital that individuals managing user identities learn from others who have grappled with numerous identities in the past.

‘Most people have multiple accounts that they manage separately – and they don’t trust anybody online,’ he said.

‘There is a widespread lack of trust, and government systems are generally perceived to be vulnerable. Would a single identity be stolen?’

Mike Davis, senior research analyst at Butler Group, says federation can balance security risks and make public sector organisations work more effectively.

‘There needs to be a joining up so that systems interconnect. And we need to have FAM so the systems can be joined together,’ he said.

‘The reality is that you need to have federation because the public sector involves far more than just one institution. In education, for example, you have schools, bodies and organisations.’

Davis says federated access is already a popular security device in the private sector.

‘Multinational banks have it all the time because they work across the globe using many different languages,’ he said.

‘It is viable, particularly when you are dealing with public sector workers with multiple jobs in a range of organisations.’

Jisc announces federated access

Jisc ...in 30 seconds
How are higher education systems being overhauled?

The Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) recently encouraged academic institutions to consider open source as the default for developing software.

In January, Jisc announced details of a £29m next-
generation network to support academia. The fibre backbone, SuperJanet5, is designed to ensure that network capacity stays ahead of demand.

A report from Jisc last year found schemes to digitise learning resources remained unstructured and fragmented, despite the £130m public sector bodies have spent on digital content since the mid-1990s.

In October, Jisc announced plans to invest £80m in UK education IT systems over the next two years. It aims to invest £13m in its repositories scheme.

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