In our increasingly interconnected world, digital identity is no longer just a technical artifact. It is a foundational element of trust, civic access, and operational integrity. Yet too often, we blur the lines between identity management (IdM), access control, and credential provisioning, even in professional IT circles.
We rush to enable single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA), but overlook a critical question: Do we actually know who the user is?
Identity Management Is a Social and Ethical Imperative
The digital fabric of our lives is woven tighter every day, and at the center of that fabric is Identity. As IT leaders, we design systems to manage who can access what, when, and how. But increasingly, we’re realizing that identity management isn’t just a technical challenge. It’s a social, ethical, and even geopolitical one.
We often conflate identity governance with access management (AM). We build systems to authenticate users and enforce permissions, which are critical functions. But identity management is fundamentally about knowing and validating who a person truly is. Without this validation, every downstream decision—authorization, audit, access—is at risk.
The Imperative of Verified Identity
Employee Onboarding and Background Checks
Is your employee identity explicitly tied to the HR background check that verified them? In many cases, account provisioning happens without this critical assurance link, opening the door to ghost accounts, insider threats, and compliance failures.
Student Identity Verification and Financial Aid
In higher education, the stakes are even higher. Students receive not just credentials and transcripts but also federal, state, and institutional financial aid. The university has a responsibility to verify the individual receiving these resources.
Strong student identity verification upon account claim is essential, not just for security, but for integrity and compliance.
The Golden Record: Trusting Authoritative Sources
Ethical and secure identity lifecycle management depends on the “golden record” principle, ensuring that personal attributes (legal name, DOB, university ID) are managed in authoritative systems like HR, SIS, or ERP platforms.
The IAM system should consume, not override or modify, these attributes.
However, certain attributes such as preferred name, account recovery data, or privacy flags may be better managed within the IAM platform itself. It’s about respecting boundaries, while still delivering personalization and usability.
How Fischer Identity Builds the Foundation of Trust
These aren’t just theoretical ideas. At Fischer Identity, we’re actively solving these challenges through mature, purpose-built solutions.
Identity Verification at Account Claim
We partner with 1Kosmos to bring identity proofing into the initial account claim workflow. Organizations can validate user identities using government IDs, biometrics, or device-based validation before issuing credentials, preventing fraud and enhancing identity assurance.
Process-Driven Identity Assurance
Our platform allows organizations to tie identity provisioning directly to trusted business processes. For employees, that means verification via HR systems and background checks. For students, it means identity claims are backed by SIS and admissions records.
Source-of-Truth Data Orchestration
Fischer’s platform is designed around identity orchestration. We sync from HR, SIS, and other authoritative systems, managing lifecycle events based on trusted sources while allowing IAM-managed data points like recovery settings to enhance the overall experience.
Personalized, Pseudonymous Identifiers
We support preferred login ID formats such as first.last@org.edu, offering users greater comfort and clarity over generic formats like xyz123@org.edu. While this isn’t full pseudonymity, it balances usability with security which is a critical win for user experience.
The Broader Ecosystem: IDPro, Identiverse, and Collective Insight
There are no perfect solutions—yet. These challenges are precisely why communities like IDPro.org exist: to advance IAM best practices, elevate professional standards, and grapple with complex identity issues collectively.
Similarly, events like Identiverse bring together identity architects, security analysts, product developers, and thought leaders to share lessons learned and prototype better futures.
At Fischer Identity, we’re proud to be part of this conversation.
Ethical Identity Starts with Intentional Design
Identity management is not just about access—it’s about trust. It’s about validating people, protecting institutions, and ensuring ethical stewardship of digital credentials. Our goal at Fischer Identity is to help organizations move beyond transactional IAM and build identity ecosystems rooted in trust, transparency, and long-term resilience.
At Fischer Identity, we are deeply committed to being part of this collaborative effort. We might not always be the loudest vendor in this space, especially when compared to the vast marketing machines of generalist players. But we firmly believe we are the most mature, with a strong leadership history of seeing identity trends and leading the way in Identity Governance and Administration going back decades. Our focus remains on empowering organizations to build identity systems rooted in trust, transparency, and unwavering ethical responsibility.
Let’s not just solve technical problems. Let’s solve the right problems, in the right way.
