Federated Authentication for Connected London Public WiFi

The London Borough of Camden (Camden) is exploring options for a potential second pilot of the Connected London public WiFi programme.

Working with the Greater London Authority and other participating organisations, Camden is considering a federated authentication model based on the Wireless Broadband Alliance's OpenRoaming® standard. The ambition is to enable a seamless, secure and interoperable user experience across participating organisations while allowing each participant to retain appropriate control of its own infrastructure, policies and governance.

This notice is published solely to understand current market capability and inform future thinking. The purpose of this engagement is to better understand the maturity of the market, available technical approaches and delivery models, and to help inform any future procurement strategy and technical specification. No procurement has commenced and no decision has been made to undertake any procurement.

Areas of Interest

Camden is interested in understanding solutions that:

• support OpenRoaming and associated industry standards;
• enable federated identity and authentication across multiple organisations;
• integrate with enterprise wireless infrastructure;
• support secure, privacy-conscious and accessible user journeys;
• minimise vendor lock-in through the use of open standards and documented APIs; and
• support a scalable federated ecosystem comprising public sector organisations, voluntary and community sector organisations, and private sector partners, while enabling each participant to retain appropriate control of its own infrastructure, policies and governance.

Market Engagement

At this stage, Camden is seeking to understand the capabilities of organisations that develop, own or operate relevant authentication technologies or services.

Camden is not seeking engagement with value added resellers, distributors or systems integrators at this stage. Where appropriate, Camden may invite organisations to participate in focused technical discussions.

Important Information

This notice is issued for preliminary market engagement under the Procurement Act 2023.

It is not a call for competition and does not commit the London Borough of Camden to undertake a procurement or award a contract. Participation, or non-participation, in this engagement will not confer any advantage or disadvantage in any future procurement.

Camden reserves the right not to respond to unsolicited enquiries arising from this notice.

The project is currently unfunded and exploratory in nature. Publication of this notice does not imply that funding will be secured or that a procurement exercise will take place.