The government will roll out its GovWifi service to the majority of government buildings in 2017 following further user testing of the free Wi-Fi service by the public.
"GovWifi will continue to be tested with end users across government as well as staff responsible for implementing and managing the service," Nick Breeze and Sanjay Poyzer wrote in a blog post. "We'll also do more research to make sure GovWifi meets the needs of the wider public sector, such as local government, health and social care."
The cloud-based authentication service makes logging onto Wi-Fi in public places easier, collating participating networks into one super network. Each person accessing the GovWifi service is protected with their own credentials and encryption keys that permit them to log on and use the internet.
They are also able to access their organisation's resources as if they were using a VPN. To stop the spread of malware, each device is isolated from others using the network, putting security at the centre of the service.
GovWifi was released to make it easier for people to log onto a secure network without having to individually log onto each environment, ensuring anyone wanting to log in felt included, whether they are trying to use the internet in government buildings where they work, or public areas such as the Job Centre or Passport Office.
"We've been doing a lot of user research on the user journey for different types of devices," Poyzer explained. "It's not quite 'one click', but instead it's a simple login that you only need to do once for that device. Each time you enter a participating building the device will login automatically."
