Title: Federated Identity Management systems in e-government: the case of Italy

Authors: Roberto Baldoni

Addresses: Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica "Antonio Ruberti", Universita degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" di Roma, Via Ariosto 25, 00185 Roma, Italy

Abstract: Federated Identity Management (FIdM) systems are at the heart of any online service in a public, private or hybrid autonomous cooperating system. This paper reviews and compares several existing approaches for building FIdM systems in the specific sector of e-government by showing Identity Management (IdM) schemes employed by several countries representatives of different realities by size, geographical location and Public Administration (PA) traditions. The paper analyses then the case of Italy by introducing the ongoing effort for defining and developing a nationwide e-government Enterprise Architecture to guarantee a flexible approach for integrated application services, respecting local and central administrations' autonomy. The paper finally focuses on the FIdM aspects employed within the Italian Enterprise Architecture.

Keywords: FIdM; federated identity management; information security; management support; SAML; security assertion markup language; enterprise architectures; e-government; public sector; Italy; electronic government.

DOI: 10.1504/EG.2012.044779

Electronic Government, an International Journal, 2012 Vol.9 No.1, pp.64 - 84

Published online: 22 Nov 2014 *

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