Unlocking Trust and Access: 100 Critical Questions for Choosing the Right Public Sector CIAM

In today’s digital-first world, public sector organizations are under increasing pressure to provide seamless, secure, private, and user-friendly access to digital services. Citizens expect the same ease of use from government platforms that they experience with commercial services—without compromising on privacy or security. That’s where Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) comes in.

But selecting the right CIAM solution for the public sector isn’t just a matter of comparing feature lists. It requires a deep understanding of your organization's needs, your users' expectations, and the complex regulatory environment you operate within.

Whether you're in the early stages of planning or narrowing down potential vendors, asking the right questions can make all the difference.

In this post, we’ve compiled 100 essential questions to guide your decision-making process—from security and compliance to user experience and scalability. Use this as your strategic checklist to ensure your CIAM investment serves both your mission and the people who rely on it.

100 RFP Questions CIAM

General Information & Vendor Background

1. Provide a brief history of your company, including years in business and focus areas.
2. Describe your experience with CIAM implementations in the public sector.
3. Provide examples of past government or public sector clients using your solution.
4. What differentiates your CIAM solution from competitors?
5. How does your solution address the unique security and compliance needs of the public sector?
6. Provide details on your customer support model, including SLAs.
7. Do you have an active user community and support forums?
8. Provide references from at least three public sector clients.
9. How frequently is your platform updated, and what is your upgrade process?
10. What professional services do you offer for implementation, customization, and support?
    

Identity & Access Management Features

1. Does your solution support both citizen and business entity identities?
2. Describe your solution’s authentication mechanisms, including MFA, passwordless, and adaptive authentication.
3. Does your solution support Single Sign-On (SSO) across multiple government applications?
4. How does your solution handle federated identity management?
5. What identity verification methods does your solution support (e.g., document verification, biometric authentication)?
6. How does your solution handle user provisioning and account deletion?
7. Can your solution integrate with other government-issued digital identity frameworks?
8. How does your system support social login options (e.g., 3^rd party logins)?
9. Can your CIAM solution manage both citizens and business entities under the same platform?
10. How does your system handle account recovery and self-service password resets?

Security & Compliance

1. Explain the certifications that come with your platform?
2. How does your solution ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations?
3. Does your solution support attribute-based access control (ABAC)?
4. How do you protect user credentials and personally identifiable information (PII)?
5. How does your solution detect and mitigate identity fraud risks?
6. What are the available logging and audit capabilities in your solution?
7. Does your solution provide real-time security monitoring and alerting?
8. How do you handle data encryption in transit and at rest?
9. How does your CIAM solution prevent identity theft and account takeovers?
10. Describe how your solution handles insider threats and unauthorized access attempts.
    
    

Scalability & Performance

1. How does your solution handle millions of users simultaneously?
2. What is your platform’s average uptime and SLA guarantees?
3. Can your CIAM solution support high-availability and disaster recovery?
4. Describe your system’s architecture—cloud-native, on-premises, or hybrid.
5. How does your solution handle session management and scaling for peak traffic events?
6. Can the system dynamically scale based on traffic demand?
7. What cloud providers do you partner with to provide your solution?
8. How does your system optimize API performance and minimize latency?
9. How does your solution ensure redundancy in case of system failures?
10. Do you offer a global content delivery network (CDN) for better performance?
    
    

User Experience & Accessibility

1. How does your solution ensure a seamless and frictionless user experience?
2. Can users customize their profile information and privacy preferences?
3. Does your system support adaptive authentication to balance security with usability?
4. Is your CIAM solution accessible per WCAG 2.1 compliance standards?
5. How do you handle multi-language support for diverse public sector users?
6. Can users authenticate using government-issued identity documents?
7. Does your system support digital wallets and identity verification apps?
8. How does your solution optimize login and registration processes?
9. Can users manage their consent and data-sharing preferences?
10. Does your CIAM solution provide white-labeling options for branding consistency?
    
    

Integration & Interoperability

1. What APIs and SDKs are available for integrating with existing public sector applications?
2. Does your solution support integration with legacy IAM systems?
3. Can your CIAM platform integrate with third-party fraud detection and risk engines?
4. Does your system support OpenID Connect, SAML, and OAuth 2.0?
5. Can your system be deployed in a hybrid or multi-cloud environment?
6. How does your solution integrate with public sector case management systems?
7. Can the system integrate with government identity verification databases?
8. How do you support integration with mobile applications?
9. Does your CIAM solution support low-code/no-code integration options?
10. Can your platform integrate with Microsoft Active Directory and Azure AD?
    
    

Fraud Prevention & Risk Management

1. How does your solution detect and respond to anomalous login behaviors?
2. What identity proofing mechanisms do you provide?
3. Can your solution leverage AI and machine learning for fraud detection?
4. Does your solution support risk-based authentication?
5. How do you handle credential stuffing and brute-force attack prevention?
6. Can your system integrate with third-party threat intelligence feeds?
7. How does your platform prevent synthetic identity fraud?
8. Can users be required to verify identities periodically for high-risk applications?
9. Does your system provide audit trails for fraud investigations?
10. How does your solution handle automated bot attacks on login and registration pages?
    
    

Data Privacy & User Consent Management

1. How does your solution handle user consent and preference management?
2. Can users request data deletion or export their personal data?
3. Does your system support granular consent for different data-sharing use cases?
4. How do you ensure compliance with evolving data privacy laws?
5. What tools are available for public sector agencies to manage citizen consent?
6. How do you handle data anonymization and pseudonymization?
7. Can administrators enforce consent revocation across multiple systems?
8. How do you manage data sovereignty for government agencies?
9. Can users control which third-party services access their data?
10. How does your platform support the "right to be forgotten"?
    
    

Administration & Analytics

1. What types of administrative roles and permissions are available?
2. How do administrators monitor user activity and security events?
3. Does your solution provide real-time analytics on authentication events?
4. Can administrators configure custom policies for authentication and access?
5. What kind of reports and dashboards are available?
6. How does your solution handle audit logs and compliance reporting?
7. Can your platform detect and respond to security threats in real time?
8. Do you offer automated risk-based access control features?
9. How does your system support security event correlation and response?
10. Can administrators customize authentication workflows?
    
    

    Pricing & Licensing

1. What is your pricing model—subscription, per-user, per-transaction?
2. Are there any additional costs for advanced authentication features?
3. Do you offer tiered pricing based on the number of users?
4. What are the licensing options for government agencies?
5. How do you handle pricing for seasonal or temporary spikes in user volume?
6. Are discounts available for multi-year contracts or large user bases?
7. Is there a cost difference between cloud, on-premises, and hybrid deployments?
8. Do you provide flexible licensing for different public sector departments?
9. Are there additional fees for compliance audits or regulatory reporting?
10. What are the penalties for early contract termination?

Portage CitizenOne Public Sector CIAM

Portage CitizenOne is the trusted CIAM to better serve your citizens.

CitizenOne is CIAM built for the unique needs of the public sector. CitizenOne consolidates all services in one user friendly dashboard and leverages powerful features to simplify the user experience and ensure compliance with privacy and data security obligations.

With one secure login, citizens can seamlessly find and subscribe to services, while its self-service configuration capabilities allow for the fast and easy consolidation and delivery of services via the digital channel more securely than ever before.