What is Identity Management?

• Identity management provides a real-time assurance that a person is who he or she claims to be during his or her employment life cycle. 
• The policies, processes, and systems for efficiently and effectively governing and managing who has access to which resources within an organization. 

Why is Identity Management Important?

• Identity Management (IdM) is required if employees cannot have similar access rights and access passes within an organization’s systems, information or assets. Information security and the nature of information (trade secrets, privacy) are the main reasons for limited and controlled access rights processes. In addition, the fulfillment of legal obligations and regulation (SOX, HIPAA, BASEL, ISO, VAHTI, PCI) requires access rights management and setting a limit to access.

When is Identity Management Important?

• If profiling of persons is required.
• If there is need to contoll users' access rights or access to information, systems, or physical assets.

How to Get Started with Identity Management

• An organization needs to identify possible information security risks as well as regulations and requirements for information security (SOX, HIPAA, BASEL).
• The organization needs to identify the information to be protected (the nature of the information, the form of the information, is the location of the information).
• The organization needs to identify the right procedures and processes for information protection.
• As a conclusion from the previous stages, the organization will have requirements for the information system. The next step is to find appropriate systems according to the requirements and test how the system supports the predefined business process requirements.  

Who Benefits Most from Identity Management?

All organizations benefit from identity management, regardless of size or industry, because they must controll:

• The systems the organization is using. 
• Access to those systems.
• The activities performed in the systems. 
• The changes that have been executed.
• The systems users can access and the related privileges.
• The approval and granting of access rights.

The best way to succeed in identity management is through a process-based approach. Process-based systems benefit especially an organization that has a lot of organizational changes (changes in responsibilities, substitutes, other short-time employees, external users) because it enables the management of access rights approval, change and removal processes related to an identity life cycle in real time. Read more about our integrated identity management solution.