Access Management: Human Resources have a vital role to play within employee identity and access management

Many organizations are turning to identity and access management for better security, improved efficiency, maintenance of data quality as well as help with regulatory compliance. However, as more employee role changes occur, employees and non-employees are not losing their electronic privileges when they should. Dale Young at Insight Consulting advocates that IT should make the most of human resources in any identity management process. HR are the authoritative source of employee whereabouts and job descriptions. By getting HR buy-in at the beginning of the project, and leveraging HR life-cycle and life-events, this can significantly reduce an identity access management project life-cycle as the data and structures are already used within the business. This article discusses how to liaise with HR and use its intelligence to manage employee identities. While most organizations view security as 'keeping the bad guys out', Identity and Access Management (IAM) approaches security from the opposite direction - focusing on how to securely let business in and control application access to internal employees, external customers and business partners.