New Zealand is moving its citizen digital identity-checking service from a custom-made, legacy platform to the Azure cloud by June 30, 2020

UNIFY Solutions and Microsoft New Zealand will work in partnership with the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) to manage the transition project which promises to deliver service improvements over time.

Managed by DIA, the RealMe Login and Assertion Services allow New Zealanders, immigrants and New Zealand organisations to confidently manage and securely prove their identities online across multiple online services.

David Philp, DIA General Manager, Service Delivery and Operations, says: “This is a significant project for DIA’s RealMe Login and Assertion Services – it both secures the future of RealMe and sets it up with the flexibility we need for any future developments. We are pleased to work with UNIFY Solutions NZ, Microsoft’s global partner for security and identity collaboration work.”

The transition from the current Infrastructure as a Service platform to the new, cloud-based Microsoft Azure AD B2C (Azure) platform is expected to bring DIA savings in operating costs, as well as ongoing capital investment.

One of the goals of the project is to strengthen RealMe’s high privacy and security standards, while bringing the RealMe Login and Assertion Services into alignment with DIA’s cloud adoption strategy.

Other expected benefits of the project for DIA include:
·        Reduced operational and development costs
·        Increased speed and flexibility as a result of the cloud-based operating system, network, middleware components and version management
·        Advanced security protection and access, including detection and reporting based on risk profiling
·        Potential for faster delivery of new capabilities
·        Improved usability, due to a much wider user base and more mature GUI and workflow.

The transition is expected to be a quick and simple exercise, resulting in no disruption to services integrated with RealMe, while users of RealMe Login and Assertion Services are unlikely to notice the change.

The transition affects the RealMe Login and Assertion Services only. These services deal only with data that is made pseudonymous.

The RealMe Identity Verification Service (IVS) is not transitioning to the Azure platform. All data within the IVS is remaining within New Zealand under the current data hosting arrangements with the Datacom Cloud Service for Government (DCGS).