How RealMe works

RealMe® is about providing New Zealanders with easy access to online services. RealMe services are a government common capability offering core functionality to central and local government agencies, and to private sector organisations.

It's important to understand the difference between the RealMe login service and the RealMe assertion service when determining the possible fit for your organisation. 

You will need to implement Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML) v2.0 for your online service - this is the messaging protocol which ensures a secure exchange between your online website and RealMe services. There is a bit more to a SAML integration than implementing a simple API, but this ensures a very secure and trusted federated service.

We have a list of SAML options that have been used to integrate with RealMe services. For Java and .NET there are a variety of open source libraries and commercial offerings - there are also toolkits for other environments including PHP, Ruby, and Perl. Many enterprise identity and access management products such as OpenAM, Microsoft Azure, Ping and IBM Security Manager already have built-in support for SAML. 

When you're ready to get started, you can try it out now in the Message Testing Service sandbox environment. 

After successfully connecting to the Message Testing Service, the core steps for technical integration describes what is involved in configuring and connecting your online service to the RealMe ITE and Production environments.