Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Hundreds of applications across government websites require visitors to log in. Many of these login systems use old technology or outdated encryption standards. As a result, visitors often have an inconsistent, confusing, or unreliable experience simply logging in to government websites. In addition, each agency maintains their own system, duplicating work across the government.
To improve visitors’ experience and increase federal efficiency, 18F and the U.S. Digital Service worked together to create login.gov. Login.gov offers a single sign-on solution for government websites that lets the public access services across select agencies with the same username and password. Because the service is maintained centrally, it reduces duplication across agencies.
The login.gov team was guided by two principles: 1) create a user experience on par with top tech industry websites; and 2) focus on privacy and security from the very beginning. With a user-centered design approach, login.gov makes it easy and intuitive for visitors to choose their login credentials. On the safety side, login.gov guarantees an industry-leading degree of security, with privacy and end-to-end encryption as core tenets of the platform. Users own their own data, it’s strongly encrypted, and none of it is shared across agencies unless a user explicitly allows it.
For agencies, adopting login.gov lets them save time, money, and significant customer support resources they would have devoted to managing their login systems. Those resources can be better spent on their core missions and serving their users.
As part of our work building login.gov, a single sign on service for government, we’ve been looking at ways to effectively verify people’s identity online. Not only did we need to find a technology solution to meet this need, we need to find a solution in a stack of brand new possibilities.
The General Services Administration has developed digital versions of its Federal Identity, Credential and Access Management Roadmap and associated implementation guidance and put them online with the adoption of 18F’s Federalist platform.
Today, the U.S. Digital Service and 18F are excited to announce the launch of login.gov, a single sign-on solution for government websites that will enable citizens to access public services across agencies with the same username and password.