CHAuth Delivery Partner

Companies House (CH) is undertaking a transformation programme which includes transforming our digital services. As part of this work CH are introducing an Identity Access Management system (IDAM) using ForgeRock Identity Cloud and integrating it into our existing services. This has been done successfully on part of the digital estate, but issues have been identified on CHS (Companies House Service) - a cloud-based microservice platform on which our search services and some filing services are hosted.

The CHS platform is collection of Java and Node webapp and API services and is the basis of our architectural and technical strategy for all customer-facing services in future.

The platform currently uses a bespoke, non-standard authentication approach. While based around OAuth 2.0, the current implementation is no longer fit-for-purpose, prevents integration with IDAM and does not form part of our strategic technology stack.

As such we are embarking on a project to re-engineer the CHS authentication layer. We require an approach based on the OAuth 2.0 protocol with the OpenID Connect identity layer, integrated tightly with the ForgeRock Identity Cloud (FRIC). FRIC is already in place and is integrated with some existing services - this activity will bring CHS in line with our IDAM strategy.

This work is related to new legislative activity. These legislative changes will require CH to make many changes to what we do and how we do it. Most relevant to this work however is the requirement to verify identities of company directors and others associated with companies. As such it is critical that CH have a fit-for-purpose IDAM solution in place. Having this work completed will also allow CH to give CHS customers new user accounts with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). It is essential that the new authentication service in CHS is fit for that purpose and that knowledge transfer has been carried out effectively to our internal teams to enable ongoing development and support. This work forms a critical path for the wider CH transformation and legislative change.