Easy access to online services of the public administration
The challenges
The Online Access Act obliges the federal and state governments to offer their administrative services electronically via administrative portals by the end of 2022. For this, on the one hand, the identification of persons submitting applications is a central basis. On the other hand, people must authenticate themselves for the actual use of the services. For both identification and authentication, the procedures used must offer both a high level of security and be user-friendly. The online ID function of the electronic ID card offers a level of trust that meets the highest legal requirements and is needed above all for OZG business cases requiring the written form. For the vast majority of administrative services, however, the medium trust level of "substantial" is perfectly adequate.
Easy access to administrative services is of great importance to users. When registering for the first time to use specialized services, they are willing to invest a little more effort in identification, as long as the recurring login remains uncomplicated. To achieve this, public authorities can now combine two different processes.
The solution
Citizens identify themselves using the Governikus solution components made available to public authorities. Users can identify themselves online using the ID card app2 and the electronic ID card or residence permit, or the eID card for EU citizens. The solution components are continuously developed and maintained as part of the Governikus application of the IT Planning Council on behalf of all 16 federal states and the federal government. secunet is now expanding this trusted identification to include the secure authentication solution protect4use. Citizens can thus conveniently use a smartphone app or desktop application for authentication for all subsequent access to administrative services. This combination enables the use of public administration online services up to the eIDAS trust level "substantial".
The benefits
In this way, public authorities can implement the obligations arising from the OZG and at the same time make internal processes more efficient by providing citizens with uncomplicated access to digital services. This is because the increased number of users of online services reduces the workload of local staff, avoids (scheduling) bottlenecks and allows applications to be processed more flexibly.
With protect4use, public authorities rely on a proven technology that is already available for all relevant platforms (including Android and iOS) and browsers. It is expected that protect4use will also become part of ELSTER in 2022, enabling 10 million taxpayers and companies to log in with modern mobile devices.
