State Services Minister Trevor Mallard said a common approach to online authentication was needed "to give people confidence in secure online government services".
The State Services Commission's E-Government Unit is seeking submissions on how the proposal might work in practice, before presenting a paper to the Cabinet mid-year.
The consultation will be through a questionnaire, with an April 7 deadline for responses.
None of the proposals floated by the E-Government Unit require a national identity card and the unit is not asking whether the public would prefer the option of a computer-readable electronic identity card to identify themselves online.
While people would not be forced to obtain user names and passwords if they did not want to access secure services online, the consultation document says people would be expected to remember them and keep them secret if they applied for them.
To register for a user name and password, people would be asked to provide information such as their name, date and place and birth, and possibly existing identifiers such as their driver's licence or IRD number.
Under the E-Government Unit's plan, these would be verified by a referee, such as a government department or justice of the peace, nominated by the individual.
People would then be posted a one-off access code which they would use online to set up their user name and password.
People are being asked if they would prefer a separate user name and password for each government agency with which they have dealings, or whether they would prefer one set of credentials, creating a single, all-of-government authentication regime.
Assuming the latter, another issue up for consultation is whether the Government would nominate a single agency to manage the registration process and perform the initial password check when people logged on.
The alternative mooted by the E-Government Unit is to give people a choice of different agencies they could choose to perform that particular function.
E-Government Unit delivery manager Edwin Bruce conceded the option of multiple authentication agencies would make no practical difference to the public or to the services agencies could provide.
However, people are being asked if they would like the choice as research had indicated some may feel more comfortable with one agency, rather than another, acting as their authentication agency, he said.
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