igovt services win innovation award

18 October 2011

The igovt services provided by the Department of Internal Affairs received a ‘first equal’ highly commended prize in the Innovation category at the 2011 Australia and New Zealand Internet Awards (ANZIA) in Melbourne yesterday (17 October).

The Innovation category recognises initiatives that make a significant contribution to the Internet through a new and unique venture.

Andrea Gray, General Manager Identity and Data Services, said the igovt services were designed to solve the universal challenge of identifying and authenticating people when making information and services available online.

“Having the igovt solution recognised at this level acknowledges the unique formula of separating authentication from identity,” said Ms Gray. “These separate services were designed to protect people’s privacy and ensure that identity information is only provided when people want to make it available.

“The igovt services are influencing identity and authentication models internationally and this approach could change the way other governments interact online with their citizens. The benefit for people dealing with government is that, as more services integrate, they can reuse their igovt logon, instead of having to remember multiple passwords,” said Ms Gray.

The igovt logon service was launched in April 2007. This is an all-of-government service, designed to authenticate people without providing any identity information. The igovt logon service currently provides access to 33 different services, offered by 13 different government departments. It has experienced exponential growth with 335,500 logons having been used more than 2.6 million times.

The igovt identity verification service was launched in November 2009 and solves the problem of being able to prove identity online, while protecting privacy. To use this service people need an igovt ID. To date, more than 1000 igovt IDs have been issued.

The Department of Internal Affairs is the custodian of New Zealand’s official birth, death, marriage, passport and citizenship registers and the Authentication Standards.

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Media contact
Tony Wallace, Senior Communications Advisor (External), The Department of Internal Affairs
Mobile 027 440 2667 tony.wallace@dia.govt.nz