Federated identity to access e-government services: are citizens ready for this?

Both the US & UK government have decided that citizens will to authenticate to government using Federated Identity (FedID) solutions: governments do not want to be Identity providers (IdPs), but leverage accounts that citizens have with other service providers instead. We investigated how citizens react to their first encounter FedID authentication in this context. We performed 2 studies using low fidelity prototypes with: in study 1, 44 citizen participants, & in study 2, 22 small business owners, employees & agents. We recorded their reactions during their user journey authenticating with 3rd party providers they already had accounts with. In study 1, 50% of participants said they would not continue to use the system on reaching the hub page, & 45% believed they were being asked to make a payment. 25% of those continuing said they would stop when they reached the consent page, where they were asked by their IdP to authorise the release of their identifying information to the government service. 34% of the participants felt threatened rather than reassured by the privacy protection statement. With study 2's improved prototype, only 14% of participants said they would not continue on reaching the hub page, & 6% abandoned at the consent page. Our results show that usability & acceptance of FedID can be greatly improved by the application of standard HCI techniques, but trust in the ID Provider is essential. We finally report results from a survey of which ID providers UK citizens would trust, & found significant differences between age groups.