1 Introduction

The Consumer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) market in Japan is an important and growing sector, driven by the increasing need for robust identity management systems to secure transactions and manage customer data. CIAM is a well-established and innovative branch of the broader IAM field. CIAM solutions are designed to address specific technical requirements that consumer-facing organizations have that differ from traditional “workforce” or business-to-employee (B2E) use cases. CIAM encompasses business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business customer (B2B), and government-to-citizen (G2C) use cases and functions.

CIAM systems provision, authenticate, authorize, collect, and store identity and other information about consumers from many and sometimes unauthoritative sources. Improved user experience is important, particularly through channels like mobile devices and social networks, which streamline the onboarding process. For example, Japan has a high rate of mobile and social media usage. CIAM solutions that integrate with mobile applications and social media platforms, offering features like social login, are increasingly popular. This not only speeds up the onboarding but also reduces friction, leading to higher conversion rates and user retention.

CIAM has also diverged from traditional IAM in supporting baseline features for analyzing customer behavior, collecting consent for user data usage, and integrating with CRM and marketing automation systems. Although CIAM provides many benefits to the consumer regarding user experience, there are challenges for the organization implementing a CIAM solution. For example, many Japanese firms still operate using legacy systems that are not easily compatible with modern CIAM solutions. In addition, organizations must address data privacy and comply with new and demanding anti-fraud and other regulations.

Figure 1: CIAM market size predictions 2022-2026

These are the capabilities that KuppingerCole views as foundational for CIAM:

• Ability to scale consumer or customer identity magnitudes higher than enterprise/workforce IAM systems.
• Flexible deployment (SaaS, in PaaS/IaaS, hybrid, on-premises).
• Micro-services architecture.
• Self-registration; social login registration; bulk user import facilities.
• User dashboards for credential, device, user profile, and consent management.
• Secure account recovery mechanisms (excluding security questions).
• Multi-factor and passwordless authentication, such as passkeys, and support for multiple authenticator types, especially mobile applications and biometrics.
• SDK to enable customers to build authenticators and embed CIAM platform authentication into customer apps, if no SDK, then well-documented APIs for easier integration.
• Orchestration for onboarding, authentication, and maintenance workflows; inclusive of third-party services.
• Integrated compromised credential intelligence.
• Authentication policies mapping assurance levels to authenticator types for step-up authentication.
• Risk-adaptive authentication; evaluation of runtime environmental parameters, user behavioral analytics, and fraud/threat/compromised credential intelligence.
• Support for consumer IoT device identity integration.
• Support for all major identity federation standards, including SAML, OAuth, OIDC, and JWT.
• Support for Single Sign-On (SSO) between all related customer properties and brands.
• APIs and connectors for marketing analytics and automation, CRMs, and other SaaS apps.
• Identity proofing functions and/or integration with third-party identity proofing services.
• Integrations with Fraud Reduction Intelligence Platforms.
• Integrations with customer SIEMs.
• ITSM integration.
• Collection and presentation of identity analytics.
• Reports & dashboards for CIAM system metrics.
• Data localization/residency for privacy regulatory compliance.
• Reports and support for privacy regulation compliance audits.

All kinds of organizations buy CIAM solutions: from small-to-medium size businesses to large enterprises and governments agencies. Any organization that needs to interface digitally with consumers, customers, or citizens, whether for-profit or non-profit, can benefit from CIAM. Some solution providers are themselves global businesses, while others are regional specialists. In the IAM market in Japan, NRI Secure Technologies offers its Uni-ID solution as a customer-facing IAM (CIAM) product, supporting both B2C and B2B use cases in the country. It was first developed in 2008, rebranded, and relaunched as Uni-ID Libra in 2017.