Identity Correlation - Common Barriers To Performing Identity Correlation

Common Barriers To Performing Identity Correlation

1. Privacy Concerns

Often, any process that requires an in-depth look into identity data brings up a concern for privacy and disclosure issues. Part of the identity correlation process infers that each particular data source will need to be compared against an authoritative data source to ensure consistency and validity against relevant corporate policies and access controls.

Any such comparison that involves an exposure of enterprise-wide, authoritative, HR-related identity data will require various non-disclosure agreements either internally or externally, depending on how an organization decides to undergo an identity correlation exercise.

Because authoritative data is frequently highly confidential and restricted, such concerns may bar the way from performing an identity correlation activity thoroughly and sufficiently.

2. Extensive Time and Effort Requirements

Most organizations experience difficulties understanding the inconsistencies and complexities that lie within their identity data across all of their data sources. Typically, the process can not be completed accurately or sufficiently by undergoing a manual comparison of two lists of identity data or even executing simple scripts to find matches between two different data sets. Even if an organization can dedicate full-time individuals to such an effort, the methodologies themselves usually do not expose an adequate enough percentage of defunct identities, validate an adequate enough percentage of matched identities, or identify system (non-person) account IDs to pass the typical requirements of an identity-related audit.