{"id":1360,"date":"2015-12-10T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T08:00:32","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-05-31T16:34:29","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T23:34:29","slug":"helping-governments-manage-user-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cm-edgetun.pages.dev\/en-us\/industry\/blog\/government\/2015\/12\/10\/helping-governments-manage-user-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping governments manage user identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Identity_Management_Blog_733x412\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, when the Internal Revenue Service began enabling taxpayers to download their tax transcripts, 17 million people took advantage of the service<\/a>, reducing phone, email, and in-person requests by 40 percent. The new IRS service is a great example of the kinds of government initiatives that can improve citizen services while reducing costs. Yet such services are only possible with a secure and affordable identity management system.<\/p>\n

Just a decade ago, identity management was relatively simple. Governments managed their own servers on-premises, supplying employees with a user name and password to access desktop computers. However, in the current mobile-first, cloud-first world, managing user identities has become increasingly complex. Today, identity management often involves monitoring access to a combination of on-premises and cloud-based applications and services. It frequently requires managing the identity of a proliferating number of devices that users bring to work. And, increasingly, it entails overseeing a broad network of citizens and other external users\u2014such as the citizen logon accounts required for the IRS tax transcript service.<\/p>\n

The importance of user identity only continues to grow as governments seek to control not just the complex mix of users and devices, but also an exploding number of sensors used to monitor government operations.<\/p>\n

Through all of these changes, Microsoft continues to set the standard for identity management. Windows Server Active Directory is currently used by 95 percent of Fortune 1000 companies<\/a> on-premises, while 1.4 million businesses, government agencies, schools, and nonprofits in nearly 130 countries use Azure Active Directory<\/a> to authenticate users in the cloud, on-premises, or both. And to ensure that our customers have the most advanced identity management tools, we\u2019re continuing to innovate at a rapid pace.<\/p>\n

So what are some of the identity management features we provide? Here are six capabilities that are helping governments secure access to their information:<\/p>\n