Customer Identity and Access Management

Enterprise IAM (covered in the IAM branch) handles employees, contractors, and partners. Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) is the distinct discipline of managing identity for an application's end users. Consumers, citizens, business customers. The scale is different (millions of users vs thousands of employees), the UX requirements are different (consumers won't tolerate enterprise-style friction), the security model is different (account takeover and fraud are primary threats), and the business model is different (CIAM directly impacts conversion and retention).