Identity and access management: a comparison between public and private sectors

What does Identity and Access Management (IAM) mean?
It refers to the structured process and computer solutions that allow the centralized and automated management of access and authorization for employees and collaborators who need to access various corporate resources (email, folders, applications, tools, databases, etc.) from different devices (desktop, tablet, smartphone, etc.).

Each employee and collaborator has a role, which is defined based on their qualification or assigned by their supervisor, and this allows them to access different information and handle more or less sensitive data. It is important for each user to access only what they need, no more and no less, for reasons of responsibility, privacy, and security. It sounds simple, right?

Unfortunately, in most private and public companies, identity and access management is not a structured process but sometimes a rather manual one, leading to two major problems:

1. lack of security-> because lack of control or central management leaves room for unauthorized access or, worse, fraudulent access by outsiders who can appropriate sensitive information;
2. lack of efficiency -> because manual access management – often coordinated through support requests or tickets – overburdens the IT department’s operations and request processing.

On this matter, we asked some of our clients, both in the private and public sector, what the benefits were in redesigning the process and subsequent implementation of an Identity and Access Management solution, and they confirmed that:

1. it is possible to manage all access profiles to IT systems and company data through a centralized repository, even for users in different company locations or countries (and thus comply with international security standards such as ISO 27001);
2. – it is possible to configure automatic provisioning and removal processes for accounts, increasing the level of IT infrastructure security;
3. – it is possible to let IT resources be free from low-value tasks and involved in higher-value activities for the company;
4. it is possible for the documentation process related to user and data protection officer (DPO) mandates to be automated, as it is for consultants to be supported in drafting the processing and data protection impact assessment (DPIA) registry.

In summary, it is difficult to determine which benefits are more important for the private sector and which for the public sector. It depends on the company and the areas it wants to improve: security, efficiency, compliance.

Measuring the impact and benefits of redesigning a process or implementing a software is possible, especially thanks to the experience gained over the years in dozens of projects. Do you want to know what concrete benefits you could have in your case, in the company where you work?

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