Council gives remote workers security tokens

Mobile workers at North Somerset Council have been given physical authentication devices as part of an initiative to secure remote working.

Some 450 council employees have been issued with SecurID tokens from RSA Security to access sensitive information from outside the office securely.

Social workers, occupational therapists and district nurses are using the tokens to gain network access from their laptops to centrally stored data, to assess care packages and benefits eligibility for children and elderly people.

The project has also laid the foundations for a larger home and flexible working programme planned for next year, which the council hopes will lead to efficiency savings, says Andy Moll, egovernment strategy manager at North Somerset Council.

‘We needed to be sure the data was safe,’ he said. ‘It speaks for itself that we could not afford to compromise the integrity of the system. Nevertheless, it was important that any security implementation was user friendly.’

Using the RSA Security technology, employees can log in to council systems from any internet connection point. Back-end RSA ACE/Server software verifies remote workers’ usernames, passwords and a unique one-time passcode, ensuring that unauthorised people cannot access sensitive information.

‘Local authorities are really beginning to recognise the potential benefits of mobile working as a way of getting the best out of their frontline staff,’ said Moll.

‘SecurID technology has enabled us to embrace mobile working without sacrificing the integrity of what is often very sensitive information on our network.’

By using passcode-generating technology the council also hopes to cut the time IT administrators spend resetting passwords.

‘We needed a solution that would become second nature to our users and not increase work for our helpdesk team,’ said Moll.

If successful, the project – part of a remote working trial being run by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – could be extended to other councils.