Why do I have so many government logins?

Untangling the digital identity issue with Tim Bouma

There are hundreds of different ways to log into the government of Canada. A citizen has to use different systems for benefits claims, taxes, passport renewal, business registration, title transfer, and so on. How can it be so hard to just have one login we use to interact with government?
Turns out, very hard.

Canada's tried to fix this. There's even a system called GCKey that works across 30 departments, but the CRA—arguably the most important department for citizens—refuses to use it. We planned to roll out "Sign-In Canada" in the fall of 2019; it's now late 2025 and we're still waiting, and the closest thing we have to single-sign-on depends on our banking system (and almost 5% of Canadian households don't have bank accounts.)

Elsewhere in the world, things are far better. Singapore's SingPass processes 41M transactions monthly across thousands of services and is estimated to save businesses $50 per customer onboarding. Estonian citizens save days a year through digital signatures. Canada's Auditor General says Canada has "no funding" for a national digital identity approach—but 2% of GDP, which is what Estonia claims it saves, would be around $45 Billion a year.

Our guest on this episode is Tim Bouma, who worked for decades on digital identity within the government of Canada. He's the perfect person to untangle this complex issue and explain why we haven't been able to give Canadians a simple way to access all of their government services in one place.