The Integral Pillars for Digital Benefits Delivery: Access, Security, and Accuracy at BenCon 2024
Government leaders discuss how to ensure seamless access to public benefits through breaking down silos, user-friendly digital identities, and privacy-focused security measures.
The second day of BenCon 2024 opened with a panel of government leaders in conversation on The Integral Pillars for Digital Benefits Delivery: Access, Security, and Accuracy.
Patrick McLoughlin, executive director of MDThink, the State of Maryland’s shared technology platform that integrates multiple public benefits programs, outlined the State’s efforts to break down silos between agencies and minimize the amount of data that members of the public must provide to access services.
Speaking about the power of digital identity to enable access to services, Director of Login.gov at the General Services Administration Hanna Kim emphasized Login’s commitment to “build[ing] a technology that is a more human experience,” and leverage existing touchpoints that individuals have with government to make identity services accessible.
Panelist Naomi Lefkowitz, manager for the Cybersecurity and Privacy Applications Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), spoke to the agency’s work to make privacy — and more recently, equity — central to their guidelines and standards, and pointed to the potential tension between privacy and interoperability when it comes to digital identity credentials. Lefkowitz applauded agencies’ efforts to share the minimum information needed to make benefits determinations or understand who someone is.
Collectively, the three panelists emphasized the importance of thinking about the end users’ experiences with government systems, and working across teams and agencies to design processes that create less friction for users, while protecting privacy and data security.
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