How We Work
Trusted access, made easy
Every day, students, educators and researchers access the digital resources they need simply and securely using the login they already have from their own organisation.
That’s AAF at work.
From research platforms to data repositories, library resources and national research infrastructure, we connect organisations and individuals through a trusted national Federation, without the need for a separate account or password for every service.
AAF doesn’t hold the data. We hold the trust.
AAF doesn't store or manage users' account or details.
Instead, we provide the policies, standards, technology and governance that let organisations and services trust each other.
By joining the Federation, organisations become part of a trusted ecosystem that reduces duplication, strengthens cybersecurity, and simplifies access across the sector.
How it works
Behind every login is a simple, secure handoff between the service you’re accessing and your own organisation. Here’s how it works, step by step:
- A user accesses a service: A researcher, student, staff member, or industry partner visits a participating service. This could be a research platform, collaboration tool, data repository, library resource, cloud service, or piece of national research infrastructure. Once here, they select the option to log in.
- The service redirects to AAF: Rather than asking for a separate login, the service sends the login request to AAF, which acts as the trusted go-between – connecting it to the user’s own organisation.
- AAF identifies the organisation: The user selects their organisation from the Federation, and AAF contacts that organisation to confirm who they are.
- The organisation authenticates the user: The user’s own organisation verifies their identity using its own security systems. Because organisations manage their own users, they stay in control of identity data, authentication policies, and account management.
- Trusted information is shared: Once the user is verified, their organisation securely shares only the information the service needs to grant access – nothing more.
- Access is granted: The service confirms the user is who they say they are, and grants access to the resources they’re authorised to use. No additional usernames or passwords to remember. Users authenticate through their existing institutional credentials, making access secure and seamless.
FAQs
A few questions people often ask about how access works.
AAF is the trusted connection between organisations and services. A user’s organisation verifies their identity, and AAF’s framework lets participating services access and trust that verification – so the user can log in with the account they already have.
Authentication stays with the organisation, where security policies, multi-factor authentication and identity controls are already managed and enforced consistently. Nothing about how organisations protectsits people changes – you’resimply using your verified credentials to access a new service.
Yes. One login gets users into everything they are authorised to use, so there’s no juggling separate accounts and passwords across different services.
Only the information a service actually needs to grant access gets shared, never more. Each individual organisation stays in control of what’s disclosed.
Yes. Organisations don’t need to build or manage separate accounts for every new service their people use, which cuts down on duplicate admin.
Because the trust is already established through the Federation, people can get up and running on a new participating service quickly, without a lengthy setup process.
No. Between institutional logins and AAF Virtual Home, the Federation supports researchers, students, staff, industry partners and collaborators – regardless of if they belong to a connected organisation.
Not every researcher, industry partner, or project participant has an account with a university or connected institution. That’s where AAF Virtual Home comes in. Virtual Home is a specialised service operated by AAF for people who need access to Federation-connected services but don’t have a suitable organisational account.
Virtual Home is commonly used by independent researchers, industry collaborators, government partners, contractors and consultants, and international collaborators.