Kantara Initiative December 2009 Newsletter

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Since our formal launch in June of this year, we are extremely happy with the progress in just a few months. We have 15+ active discussion and working groups already formed, with a diverse number of members. Kantara gets new participants on a daily basis! In addition to this we are seeing growth and progress in 5 specific areas: Interoperability, Assurance, Privacy, Liability and Usability.

We had a successful inaugral face-to-face meeting in September where we co-located with DIDW. Our second event takes place March 9-11, 2010 and is kindly hosted by Intel Corporation at their facility in Hillsboro, near Portland, Oregon (details below). Many thanks to you all for your support this year; we look forward to further growth and activity in the new year.

NEWLY FORMED GROUPS
WG – Telecommunications Identity
The ultimate goal of the Telecommunications Identity (TelcoID) Work Group is to help reconcile fragmented efforts in the telco specifications development area and in the telco market place regarding identity management. In order to achieve that, it will act as a forum to facilitate the dialog between Kantara Initiative and the telco industry sector. Additionally, it will produce telco-specific technical material on top of Kantara Initiative specifications as necessary to ensure proper implementation of suitable Kantara Initiative technologies in a telco infrastructure.

WG – Identity & Access Services
Organizations recognize the need for the unambiguous expression of identity. Identity can represent a physical individual, a collection of individuals, a logical entity, a resource or a capability. Identity is a fundamental element for establishing and maintaining business relationships, and for describing the credentials, capabilities, and responsibilities of parties to a relationship. The principal business problem that drove the formation of the original Identity Services Working Group (under the auspices of Burton Group) is the difficulties companies face when integrating vendor Identity management (IdM) products with their existing infrastructure and, increasingly, in integrating vendor products themselves. As vendors continue to add to their IdM suites, integration between products is a challenge of increasing concern to organizations.

DG – Mind The Gap
The ID Legal – Map the Gap Discussion Group (MtG DG) is a collaboration between the ID Commons (IDC) (1) Identity and Legal Communities Cross Pollination Group (ID Legal) (2) and Participants within various Kantara Initiative Working Groups. The focus of the MtG DG is on a “Mapping the Gap” event that was initially proposed within the ID Legal discussions (3).

Stay tuned for new groups being formed in the coming weeks.

NEXT KANTARA INITIATIVE MEETING
The early bird registration fee is $195USD until February 12, 2010. The fee thereafter will be $250USD until March 9.

Special negotiated suites are available at the SpringHill Suites by Marriott Hillsboro for $105USD + 10% tax March 8-11.  This rate includes complimentary hot buffet breakfast and WiFi if you reserve by Feb. 9, 2010. Reserve a King Suite online (code ikgikga), or a Double Queen Suite (code ikgikgb). Reference the “Intel Kantara Group” when calling the hotel directly at +1-503-547-0202 or Reservations +1-888-287-9400.  Note there are a limited number of rooms per night, book early to guarantee this rate. (The SpringHill Suites hotel is 3.5 miles from the Intel campus). Review the sleeping room reservation PDF flyer with hyperlinks.

Read agenda and details about the event online

QUARTERLY UPDATE FROM DISCUSSION AND WORK GROUPS FOR Q3 2009

Read all Q3 quarterly reports from groups

Concordia DG
Co-Chair Names:
* Paul Madsen
* Tatsuki Sakushima

List other Officer positions and Names:
* None

List other Officer positions currently vacant:
* Secretary

What are the active number of:
* Total Participants: 59

* Voting Participants: 12

* Non-Voting Participants:47

* Total Email List Subscribers: UNREPORTED

Published Teleconference Frequency: bi-weekly

Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 2

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 1

Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

* We have 2 separate surveys underway – assurance & authz

* SAML/OpenID proxying assurance guide submitted to DG but has seen limited discussion.

* Initial discussions on SAML/OAuth ‘hybrid’ have begun

* Some interest in participating in a workshop colocated with industry event – talks ongoing

Consumer Identity WG

Chair Name: Bob Pinheiro
List other Officer positions and Names:

• None

List other Officer positions currently vacant:

• UNREPORTED

What are the active number of:

• Total Participants: 32

• Voting Participants: 14

• Non-Voting Participants:18

• Total Email List Subscribers: 54

Published Teleconference Frequency: none
Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 2

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 2
Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0
Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

• Numerous WG interactions have been conducted via email rather than in teleconference calls.

eGov WG

Chair Name: Colin Wallis

Vice Chair: Fulup Ar Foll

Vacant Officer Positions:

• Secretary

What are the active number of:

• Total Participants: 33

• Voting Participants: 12

• Non-Voting Participants: 21

• Total Email List Subscribers: 46

Published Teleconference Frequency: Weekly
Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 3

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 1
Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

• The group continues to grow steadily, but those most active are motivated mostly by deployment profiles of the identity protocols, rather than workshops, policy or other higher level activity. This status is being regularly monitored to ensure that if there is a swing of sentiment in another direction, this is captured rather than having folks leave and go elsewhere.

Healthcare Identity WG

Co-Chair Names:

* John Fraser, MEDNETWorld.com

* Pete Palmer, SureScripts

* Rick Moore, eHealth Ohio

List other Officer positions currently vacant:

* None

What are the active number of:

* Total Participants: 23

* Voting Participants: 19

* Non-Voting Participants: 4

* Total Email List Subscribers: 23

Published Teleconference Frequency: Every other week

Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 0

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

* Our kick-off meeting was October 22nd, 2009, so we just got started after Q3.

Identity Assurance WG

Chair Name: Frank Villavicencio, Identropy

List other Officer positions and Names:

• Rich Furr, Safe BioPharma, Vice Chair

List other Officer positions currently vacant:

• None

What are the active number of:

• Total Participants: 50

• Voting Participants:16

• Non-Voting Participants: 34

• Total Email List Subscribers: 68

Published Teleconference Frequency: Every other week, with additional ad hoc meetings as necessary
Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter (Q3): 3

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 3
Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0
Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

• The IAWG has a large amount of work affiliated with the accreditation and certification program and will be releasing several documents in the coming quarters. Participation is strong across geographies and verticals, with excellent collaboration. There are numerous draft documents currently in process in our “working drafts” section which are driving the bulk of our meeting discussions.

Identity Provider Selection WG WG

Chair Name: Philippe Clement

List other Officer positions and Names:

* None

List other Officer positions currently vacant:

* Vice Chair

What are the active number of:

* Total Participants: 24

* Voting Participants: 7

* Non-Voting Participants: 17

* Total Email List Subscribers: 44

Published Teleconference Frequency: 0

Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 0

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 1

Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

* First official meeting led in Las Vegas, September 2009

Information Sharing WG WG

Co-Chairs:

• Iain Henderson

• Joe Andrieu

Other Officer Roles:

• Judi Clark, Secretary

Open Officer Positions:

• None

What are the active number of:

• Total Participants: UNREPORTED

• Voting Participants: 10

• Non-Voting Participants: 16

• Total Email List Subscribers: UNREPORTED
Published Teleconference Frequency: Weekly
Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 13

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: UNREPORTED
Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: UNREPORTED

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0
Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

• The Information Sharing Group meets each Monday by tele-conference, and to date has had 13 meetings where minutes or notes have been
taken. As this was the first Kantara Group ‘out the door’, we had multiple meetings before quorum processes et al were established, but
now have that under control.

• Our main focus to date has been in building out a complex scenario where we map out customer and supplier engagement mechanics in a
futuristic, volunteered personal information enabled ‘buying a car’ situation. When we have completed this, we will document the underlying and generic capabilities that will form the specification that we take forward.

• We will shortly begin a second strand of work around the creation of a standardised approach to individual-driven information sharing
agreements.

Secretary Note: The “Information Sharing Work Group” was originally named “User-Driven Volunteered Personal Information (UDVPI) Work Group”

Japan DG

Chair Name: Kenji Takahashi

List other Officer positions and Names:

• None

Officer positions currently vacant:

• Vice Chair

What are the active number of:

• Total Participants: 29

• Voting Participants: 29

• Non-Voting Participants: 0

• Total Email List Subscribers: N/A

Published Teleconference Frequency: 0
Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 0

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

• None

Japan WG

Chair Name: Kenji Takahashi

List other Officer positions and Names:

* Toshihiro Suzuki (Vice Chair)

* Takashi Shitamichi (Secretary)

List other Officer positions currently vacant:

* None

What are the active number of:

* Total Participants: 39

* Voting Participants: 39

* Non-Voting Participants: 0

* Total Email List Subscribers: (230 as 11/25/2009)

Published Teleconference Frequency: 0

Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 1

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 2

Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 1

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

* None

Universal Login Experience WG

Chair Names:

* RL “Bob” Morgan

* Mike Graves

* Paul Trevithick

Open Officer Positions:

* None

What are the active number of:

* Total Participants: 24

* Voting Participants: 10

* Non-Voting Participants: 14

* Total Email List Subscribers: unknown

Published Teleconference Frequency: weekly

Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 0

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 0

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 0

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

* Our first teleconference was on October 14, 2009. During Q3 2009 this WG was gathering its community and getting set up.

User Managed Access WG

Chair Name: Eve Maler

List other Officer positions and Names:

* Vice-Chair: Paul Bryan

* Spec Editor: Paul Bryan

* Use Cases Editor: Hasan Akram

List other Officer positions currently vacant:

* none

What are the active number of:

* Total Participants: 38

* Voting Participants: 24

* Non-Voting Participants: 14

* Total Email List Subscribers: 68 (as of 17 Nov 2009; don’t know of a way to “back out to” 30 Sep 2009 subscriber list)

Published Teleconference Frequency: weekly

Estimated Number of Teleconferences this Quarter: 7

Number of Official Meetings this Quarter: 2 (finally debugged the non-voting participant problem in early Oct)

Number of Unofficial (aka BOF) Meetings this Quarter: 5 (plus a “public meeting” F2F at DIDW)

Number of Draft Specifications Produced this Quarter: 1 (Scenarios and Use Cases)

Number of Reports Produced this Quarter: 0

Other Comments:

* Submitted a successful 2010 budget request

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Paul Madsen, NTT currently chairs two groups – the Concordia DG and ID-WSF Evolution WG

Paul has been active with Kantara since its launch and was previously chair of Liberty Alliance’s Technology Expert Group (TEG). Paul’s current focus with the Concordia DG is to drive harmonization and interoperability of identity technology. The focus of the ID-WSF Evolution WG works to continue the development of the Liberty Alliance ID-WSF Specification Set.

Paul also participates in the OASIS SST, OpenID, OAuth, and Infocards. You can follow Pauls’ blog and Tweets to get a glimpse of his thoughts and point(s) of view!

EVENT-RELATED DISCUSSION LISTS

A number of new mailing lists have been created for planning and discussion purposes for upcoming events in the new year. Please subscribe to one or more of these lists if you would like to participate with the output of these events.

IDtrust2010@kantarainitiative.org – This list has been created for discussion and planning purposes towards speaking and panel entries for IDTrust 2010. The event takes place April 13-15, 2010 at NIST Gaithersburg, MD, USA. The paper submissions deadline has been extended to December 20, and panels will be decided in January 2010. Sign up for this list serve this serve.

RSA2010@kantarainitiative.org – This list has been created for discussion and planning purposes towards a full-day workshop on March 1, 2010. The RSA Conference is held March 1-5, 2010 at Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA, USA. Sign up for this list serve.

HIMSS2010@kantarainitiative.org – This list is open for discussion and planning purposes. We are considering a pre-conference opportunity on Feb. 28, 2010, either a breakfast or half-day workshop and are seeking sponsors. HIMSS is March 1-5, 2010 at the Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, USA. Sign up for this list serve>
CatalystEU2010@kantarainitiative.org – This list is to discuss and plan towards speaking slots related to the European Catalyst event April 19-22, 2010 in Prague, Czech Republic. Sign up for this list serve.

2010EIC@kantarainitiative.org – This list is to discuss and plan towards speaking sessions as well as a potential half-day meeting at the EIC 2010 event May 4-7, 2010 in Munich, Germany. Sign up for this list serve.

CatalystUSA2010@kantarainitiative.org – This list is to discuss and plan towards speaking slots related to the USA Catalyst event July 26-30, 2010 in San Diego, CA, USA. Sign up for this list serve.

PRESS RELEASES
NeuStar joins Kantara Initiative’s Board of Trustees, December 7, 2009
The Kantara Initiative announced today that Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) has joined its Board of Trustees, and will play an integral role in shaping the organization’s strategic direction on a global basis. Peter Davis, director and distinguished member of the technical staff within Neustar’s Advanced Technology Group, will serve as Neustar’s representative to the Kantara Initiative’s Board.

Read more

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Connect with Kantara Initiative with the various ways our individual and collective voice and experience is reaching the extended community:

Blog

Slideshare

Twitter

YouTube

Google Calendar

Flicker

Read more

UPCOMING EVENTS
See all upcoming Kantara-related events; conferences, trade events, webcasts, and more.

MISC 2010, January 20-22, 2010, Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), London, U.K.

Making learning, knowledge, working, employment, business and healthcare mobile, personal and social. MISC Conference will take place from January 20 to 22, 2010 at Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), London.

The MISC conference is about exploring the current changes in technologies and practices towards individualization and socialization through connectivity and mobile technology at the service of identity construction. Our goal is to bring together researchers and practitioners working in a variety of fields (education, employment, healthcare, policy, technologies etc.) to facilitate exchanges and foster future collaborations. It aims at offering a forum where these researchers and practitioners can discuss theoretical as well as practical aspects, open issues, and innovative approaches as well as share the latest advances in the state of the art of personal and social data management, privacy/intimacy and identity construction.

Read further details

HIMSS, March 1-4, 2010, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, GA, USA

Healthcare reform is one of the Obama Administration’s top priorities, and the landscape is changing constantly. This symposium will explore the rapidly moving field of e-commerce in healthcare. Specifically, these sessions will discuss and demonstrate how we are going to prepare to move forward efficiently and effectively with healthcare.

Registration details

Read further details

European Identity Conference (e-ID), May 4-7, 2010, Forum am Deutschen Museum, Munich, Germany

e-ID is the place to meet with enterprise technologists, thought leaders and experts to learn about, discuss and shape the market in most significant technology topics such as Identity Management, Governance, Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) and Cloud Computing. With its world class list of speakers, a unique mix of best practices presentations, panel discussions, thought leadership statements and analyst views, EIC has become an absolute must-attend event for enterprise IT leaders from all over Europe.

Kantara Initiative members receive 25-40% discount off the Conference rate. Please contact dervla[at]kantarainitiative[dot]org

Registration details

Speaker submission details – deadline Feb. 15, 2010

SPEAKING OPPORTUNITIES
We continue to build our speakers bureau. For those of you who are new members, we are looking for experts who can offer their expertise, Kantara-related, at industry trade events, conferences, co-sponsored workshops/events. These opportunities provide exposure for Kantara therefore we would like to broaden our reach by updating our group of expert speakers. If you are interested in representing Kantara Initiative, please contact Dervla O’Reilly, dervla[at]kantarainitiative[dot]org

In Jose Manuel Barroso’s recent reshuffle of the European Commission, there were a couple of moves which bear some further inspection, from a privacy/identity perspective.

The former Commissioner for Information Society, Viviane Reding, is promoted to one of the Vice Presidents of the Commission, and given a new portfolio as Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship. She has also been given the task of overhauling the Data Protection Directive (now 15 years old…).

Her former role passes to Neelie Kroes, who was previously Competition Commissioner (and oversaw, for instance, some of the Commission’s fiercest battles with Microsoft – on media player bundling, IE/Windows bundling, publication of technical interoperability documentation, Microsoft Office “Open” XML, and so on, and so forth…).

She has a reputation for being able to dive into the detailed technicalities of a brief, and for being extremely tenacious in pushing towards her intended goal.

There’s no doubt in my mind that, had the task of reviewing and revising the Data Protection Directive been left on the Commissioner’s desk at DG InfoSoc, Dr Kroes could have taken it on with competence and determination… which leads me to wonder what the implications are of Commissioner Reding taking it with her to her new role.

With the background of her four years heading DG InfoSoc, Commissioner Reding should have all the subject-matter expertise needed to make a proficient job of revising the Directive. However, what is perhaps more significant is the departmental context in which she will now undertake that work.

Instead of doing it from within DG InfoSoc, she will now do it in the same DG as is responsible for programmes such as this; the development of a framework for a European society based on notions of fundamental rights and rights derived from EU citizenship.

That suggests to me that, if anything, the revised DP Directive will be founded on even stronger links to notions of fundamental human rights and the social/citizenship context.

I foresee some lively discussions of principle between the EU and its partners, particularly where those partners either take a different view of what are fundamental rights, or of how great a role they should play in determining policy on the processing of personal data.

If Commissioner Reding wished to live in interesting times, I think her wish may have been granted.

It is now a year since the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) ruling on UK vs. S and Marper. The court’s ruling in that case was clear: the UK government’s policy of systematic and indiscriminate retention of DNA samples, DNA profiles and fingerprints of those acquitted of any offence is disproportionate. The government had, it says,

“overstepped any acceptable margin of appreciation in this regard”.

Grudgingly and slowly, the government is considering amending its policy – but only to the extent of conceding on indefinite retention. [Editorial update: as of December 9th, the Council of Europe expressed its concern that the new proposals probably still fail the proportionality tests required by the ECHR. They are keeping the dossier open, and will review the UK position again in March 2010].

Under the Home Secretary’s current proposals, the data and samples of the innocent are now only to be held for 6 years (there’s an excellent summary paper here, on the House of Commons Library website). The ruling in full is accessible online here. It’s well worth a read; almost every paragraph contains something to back up the view that the policy on DNA retention is intrusive and obnoxious. For instance, how about this section on the Police and Criminal Justice Act 2001 (my emphasis):

27. As to the retention of such fingerprints and samples (and the records thereof), section 64 (1A) of the PACE was substituted by Section 82 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. It provides as follows:

“Where – (a) fingerprints or samples are taken from a person in connection with the investigation of an offence, and (b) subsection (3) below does not require them to be destroyed, the fingerprints or samples may be retained after they have fulfilled the purposes for which they were taken but shall not be used by any person except for purposes related to the prevention or detection of crime, the investigation of an offence, or the conduct of a prosecution. …

(3) If – (a) fingerprints or samples are taken from a person in connection with the investigation of an offence; and (b) that person is not suspected of having committed the offence, they must except as provided in the following provisions of this Section be destroyed as soon as they have fulfilled the purpose for which they were taken.

(3AA) Samples and fingerprints are not required to be destroyed under subsection (3) above if (a) they were taken for the purposes of the investigation of an offence of which a person has been convicted; and (b) a sample or, as the case may be, fingerprint was also taken from the convicted person for the purposes of that investigation.”

Even the ECHR judges somewhat understate the case against retention – for instance, in this paragraph:

“78. It is common ground that fingerprints do not contain as much information as either cellular samples or DNA profiles. “

Unfortunately, that is not accurate. The fingerprints themselves (as opposed to any scanned or photographic record of them) consist of natural oils and skin cells – which of course contain the subject’s DNA. There is plenty of published material on the practicalities of small-sample DNA analysis, and the technique has been used by UK law enforcement agencies. In other words, fingerprints not only contain the same information as cellular samples, they contain cellular samples in a very individual layout – the fingerprint itself.

But I digress…

What I really wanted to do was point to three excellent blog posts on the “justification” for DNA collection and retention in the UK system.

The first is this one from Privacy law specialists Amberhawk – correlating the government’s own re-offending statistics with their assertions about the benefits of 6-year retention.

The Tech and Law blog has further analysis of the Amberhawk piece, here, including a link to a trenchant letter questioning both the practicality and the proportionality of the current policy.

And finally, Toby Stevens adds his excellent analysis here, setting out (among other things) four fundamental flaws with the current approach. In passing, he notes that the UK’s national DNA database is (perhaps thankfully) unique; no other country has one like it, or uses DNA in the same way.

Which brings us back to the ECHR’s judgement in UK vs S and Marper. Sections 47 and 48 of that judgement bear repeating in full (my emphasis):

“47. The United Kingdom is the only member State expressly to permit the systematic and indefinite retention of DNA profiles and cellular samples of persons who have been acquitted or in respect of whom criminal proceedings have been discontinued. Five States (Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Italy and Sweden) require such information to be destroyed ex officio upon acquittal or the discontinuance of the criminal proceedings. Ten other States apply the same general rule with certain very limited exceptions: Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands allow such information to be retained where suspicions remain about the person or if further investigations are needed in a separate case; Austria permits its retention where there is a risk that the suspect will commit a dangerous offence and Poland does likewise in relation to certain serious crimes; Norway and Spain allow the retention of profiles if the defendant is acquitted for lack of criminal accountability; Finland and Denmark allow retention for 1 and 10 years respectively in the event of an acquittal and Switzerland for 1 year when proceedings have been discontinued. In France DNA profiles can be retained for 25 years after an acquittal or discharge; during this period the public prosecutor may order their earlier deletion, either on his or her own motion or upon request, if their retention has ceased to be required for the purposes of identification in connection with a criminal investigation. Estonia and Latvia also appear to allow the retention of DNA profiles of suspects for certain periods after acquittal.48. The retention of DNA profiles of convicted persons is allowed, as a general rule, for limited periods of time after the conviction or after the convicted person’s death. The United Kingdom thus also appears to be the only member State expressly to allow the systematic and indefinite retention of both profiles and samples of convicted persons.”

Back in late November I Twittered from the Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmø (#egov2009), expressing the hope that the press release would contain a bit more substance than the keynote announcement of the Ministerial Declaration. I am delighted to say that when I got my hands on a copy of the full text, it did. (PDF of the Declaration available online here.)

First, though, here were the policy priorities announced by Mats Odell, Sweden’s Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets:

• Use eGovernment services to empower citizens and businesses;
• Improve mobility in the single market;
• Improve efficiency and effectiveness in eGovernment.

On that basis, you can probably see why the initial announcement left me somewhat underwhelmed. Was this, I wondered, really the culmination of four years’ policy and implementation work since the Manchester Declaration (which, at the time, I had actually thought was quite good…)?

Second, I have to say there is also still quite a lot in the full text which mostly prompts the reaction: “Oh…. well, weren’t you either doing, or supposed to be doing that anyway?”. For instance, Article 13 promises to involve stakeholders in public policy processes. Well, good.

Incidentally, while we’re on page 3 of the document, Article 12 will raise more than a few hollow laughs:

“We will explore how we can make our administrative processes more transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and trust in government”.

Not 10 days ago, the Court of Auditors declined to sign off the accounts of the European Commission for the 15th year in a row. Is it facile to suggest that as a starting point?

That good old standby “reduction of the administrative burden for citizens and business” still gets an airing (Article 17) – and rather disappointingly, “respect for privacy and data protection” gets buried under that heading, whereas I would have thought it deserves to headline in an article of its own.

Artcile 18 is a bit “meh” as well: policymakers should “consider how organisational processes could be improved”. Laudable, but it doesn’t exactly make me want to run out and have it printed on a t-shirt.

OK, so having got some of the gripes off my chest, what did I pick out as being positive aspects of the Declaration?

Well, actually, the opening Background statement is pretty good. It notes that the economic, social and environmental landscape is grim, and that despite (or perhaps even because of) that, citizens’ expectations for open, flexible and collaborative government are high.

It goes on to acknowledge that eGovernment extends beyond national boundaries, and across the divide between the public and commercial sectors.

It also suggests – which I think is fair – that some of the progress to date in e-government, and in collaboration between different member states, has happened because of the political will expressed through the precursors of this year’s Declaration.

Other positive signs:

• The tone of the Declaration is one which acknowledges that the eGovernment services of the future will be co-produced by citizens and third parties. That might not be going far enough, of course: there’s already evidence that citizens and third parties are creating public services without the direction or collaboration of government – so the latter might find that it needs to re-calibrate its notion of “open and collaborative” quite radically.

• There’s an explicit call, in Article 19, for public administrations to exploit IT in their efforts to reduce carbon footprint.

• Article 21 is explicit about the benefits of using open specifications – not least, to stimulate effective and open competition in the market. If the political will persists to enforce that effectively over time, the potential benefits are huge.

There’s more (if you count the nested lists, there are about 40 paragraphs in total), and in essence the full text does a lot more than the keynote suggested. I compared it rather unfavourably with the Manchester Declaration earlier; in retrospect that’s probably not giving a fair picture.

The current Declaration treats some of the key Manchester themes almost as “solved problems”: for instance, “trustworthy electronic identifiers” for citizens pops up only in Article 26 (d) – in the final recommendations – with a note that “activity should be intensified” and “gaps closed in cross-border interoperability and mutual recognition”.

The way I see it is this: there are definitely eGovernment problems to solve today, which only present themselves because of the increased sophistication of some current implementations (and those implementations, of course, are based on previous progress). In other words, solving one set of problems usually just raises you within reach of the next set. To extend that analogy a little: previous work has built a ladder which means we can reach out towards the next set of goals. My worry is that some of the rungs below us (and, if we’re unlucky, bits of the ladder itself) are either missing or not very well put together.

However, we are where we are – and the heartening thing about this year’s exhibition area was the sophistication and practicality of many of the systems being shown. To me, they suggest that there is good practice out there in abundance, if the rest of us are only prepared to look and learn.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Neustar Joins Kantara Initiative’s Board of Trustees

PISCATAWAY, NJ, December 3, 2009 – The Kantara Initiative announced today that Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) has joined its Board of Trustees, and will play an integral role in shaping the organization’s strategic direction on a global basis. Peter Davis, director and distinguished member of the technical staff within Neustar’s Advanced Technology Group, will serve as Neustar’s representative to the Kantara Initiative’s Board.

The Kantara Initiative fosters the interoperability and large-scale deployability of identity management standards and frameworks with actions that help ensure secure, privacy-respecting identity-based online interactions so that networks will become more natively trustworthy environments. An independently governed nonprofit organization, the Kantara Initiative is a global identity management, open Web and application developer community made up of enterprises, mobile operators, Web 2.0 service providers, e-Government agencies, IT vendors, and consumer electronics vendors, along with developers and members of the open source, legal and privacy communities.

“We are thrilled that Neustar has joined our Board of Trustees and will be contributing its unique perspective and valuable expertise on identity interoperability and portability to our current and future efforts,” said Brett McDowell, executive director at Kantara Initiative. “Kantara Initiative founders, members and participants are successful industry stakeholders in their own rights. To their credit, they recognize that the state of identity management is at a crossroads, and that collaboration – something Kantara Initiative was designed specifically to foster – is absolutely necessary to achieve progress.”

“Neustar is pleased to continue its long-standing support of the identity community through the Kantara Initiative,” added Davis. “Kantara plays a key role in providing an open, collaborative environment for individuals, vendors, and implementers to come together to create the important building blocks for the next evolutionary stage of network interactions. Making the Internet a safe and more individualized part of every day life is a core objective for Neustar and Kantara.”

“The technologies of identity management are evolving as communications services – broadband and mobile, as well as traditional services – become an ever more critical enabler of consumer and business interactions,” said Elisabeth Rainge, director of NGN Operations at IDC. “Neustar can add value to vital Kantara Initiative efforts around interoperability and portability from both the mobile and the fixed-line perspectives.”

###
About Kantara Initiative

Kantara Initiative has been formed by Concordia Project, DataPortability Project, Information Card Foundation, Internet Society, Liberty Alliance, OpenLiberty.org and XDI.org. The Kantara Initiative membership structure has been organized to ensure that there are zero barriers to participation. Membership levels allow for maximum industry-wide participation and include Participant, Member and Trustee categories, which individuals and organizations join depending on the size of the organization and type of desired participation. The Kantara Initiative membership structure, levels, fees and governance model are outlined at http://bit.ly/8bBQQm. A complete membership and chair list is available at http://bit.ly/1C2u7a.

About Neustar

Neustar, Inc. solves complex communications challenges and provides market-leading, innovative solutions and directory services that enable trusted communication across networks, applications, and enterprises around the world. Visit Neustar online at www.neustar.biz.

Kantara Initiative Media Relations Contact (United States and EMEA):

Michelle Hunt
+1-732-981-3434

Neustar Media Relations Contact:

Allen Goldberg

+1 (571)434-5520

allen[dot]goldberg[at]neustar[dot]biz