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mity of the challenge. “Identity management projects get so big that you boil the ocean rather than focus on some areas where you can really see some near-term success that leadership under- stands and can then continue to fund those programs,” he said.
When asked how IT profes- sionals could accelerate the push
for identity management, another participant emphasized the need to make it frictionless. “Do the obvious stuff. Make a day in the life of your management easier, and you will get their attention.”
But another said, “There’s nothing like a good disaster to get manage- ment’s attention. That could be the OPM breach. It could be the hurri- canes. That really starts to move things in a very rapid way.”
In other words, agency leaders often see identity management as a hassle and added cost until there’s a problem that opens their eyes to the negative impacts.
“We all look at the downside,” a participant said. “It’s all risk. It’s all punishment. What’s really missing in these equations is incentivizing good behavior. We have never really cracked that nut as a government.”
The group acknowledged that the government’s long budget process is also an ongoing challenge, but many said they see hopeful signs that the mindset of federal leaders is evolving.
“This changing conversation of iden- tity and access management as part of cyber to reduce risk to your mission is the way the conversation is emerg- ing — not so much did you comply
with some memo that was written seven years ago,” one said. “That’s a big change in the conversation.”
Identity-proo ng and interoperability
When the discussion turned to speci c ways to tackle the chal- lenges, interoperability was a key solution.
One participant whose agency provides biometric identity services for a range of internal and external users has developed bilateral agreements with other organizations, but said, “I don’t think we do federated services enough. There are people \[for whom\] it would take an act of Congress or the president for them to give up their data. We’re not going to copy the data. We’re not going to take over the data. But as we scale up from a million transactions a day to, I foresee pretty soon, 3 to 5 million a day, and to meet the time requirements with increased accuracy and more complete reports, we’re going to have to do it using a
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