Identification is on the rise – secure services are now more usable than ever

Customers expect a lot from how easy and secure logging into services should be. Identification and identity management services have become more relevant than ever.

While the market is teeming with new services, many service generations are coming to an end. Old services are renewed and more functionalities and channels are built for them. In particular, identification and identity management services have become more relevant than ever.

Customers expect a lot from how easy and secure logging into services should be. One-time use codes, password-free login, and the best possible usability are expected today. The services are no longer just web pages – logging in must also be successful with ie. the service’s mobile applications. More and more often, the channels are not limited to traditional ones, but the same solution must offer an equally easy login in, for example, a car, a smart refrigerator, or a washing machine. Everyone’s motivation is to try to minimize the number of passwords, and they want to log into the services of one supplier with the same credentials.

Platform-type thinking has also become more common. The credentials of one service can be connected to another service (for example, to a Google ID), which makes logging in as smooth as possible for the user. The background is often the Open ID Connect standard, which has been in use for a longer time, and takes care of reliable identity management when moving between different services.

The good news for companies and organizations is that modern Open ID Connect and OAuth 2.0 standards identification services are very mature, cost-effective, and straightforward to be implemented. The benefit of a key-based solution is its security and flexibility. With the same solution, not only end users but also various applications within their own service or third-party services can be identified.

Like many other software components, identity and access management should also be purchased from the cloud. All modern cloud services offer their solutions based on standards minimizing the financial and technical risks of implementation. Another option is to buy identity management as a service. There are several players on the market, such as Auth0 and Okta, whose service is set up online and which can be easily integrated with a ready-made library. The implementation is quick and easy, but offers less control compared to a customized solution and is naturally more expensive to operate. In both ways, however, the pricing is basically transparent and reasonable. It makes high-quality identification solutions viable options regardless of the size of the organization or application.

In the existing service, the transition to modern identification becomes timely especially in the transitional stages of service development. The most important thing is to make the change smooth for the end user. In the change process, you should invest especially in the communication and make every possible effort to make it easy for the user to switch to the new solution. Customers will most likely be happy to do the switch, because they appreciate high data security, especially when it is combined with an even more flexible login.

A clumsy login doesn’t have to be a bottleneck for company growth.

Strengthen competitiveness with modern identification

HiQ has been involved in implementing identification and identity management solutions for example for A-clinic and in several projects in the financial sector. Contact us and we can help you build identification and identity management that attracts users, improves information security, and enables agile business scaling.