1. Develop a joint approach to federation services and trust framework certification that takes advantage of the complementary features of the Kantara Initiative Identity Assurance Framework (IAF) and the OIX Trust Framework Platform.
2. Develop technology and policy best practice guidelines in response to growing needs for trust frameworks spanning all types of networks, transactions, and jurisdictions around the globe.
3. Identify additional trust framework infrastructure, operations, and testing areas of synergy.

The two organizations have agreed to jointly submit their own certification assessment results into an operational database which would be hosted by OIX to provide a consolidated view of certification status. An early version of the operational database instance will be a part of the Burton Catalyst Open Identity for Business demo event in July 2010.

Additionally, Kantara Initiative will begin offering their IAF Profiles as trust framework options within the OIX Trust Framework Platform which will allow OIX member companies to obtain certification against IAF Profiles and have these certifications included directly in the OIX Certification Listing Service.

To further develop this collaborative relationship, representatives of the Kantara Initiative will join the OIX Advisory Board, and OIX will join the Kantara Initiative Identity Assurance Working Group (IAWG).

“Kantara Initative’s collaboration with OIX represents a significant advancement in identity management that will serve to promote security and trust to various digital identity stakeholders (Identity Service Providers, Credential Service Providers, Relying Parties and End-Users, Federation Operators) across multiple technology platforms,” says Matthew Gardiner, Kantara Initiative president and director, CA Technologies Security customer solutions unit.

“Our collaboration effort with Kantara Initiative shows how identity services can enable business at multiple levels of assurance and across multiple protocols and multiple federations,” said Don Thibeau, OIX president. “The governmental efforts to offer open identity solutions, such as the White House’s recently announced National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), are one tangible example of this.”

“Reliable identity information is increasingly critical for electronic business. Until recently, there was no way for an enterprise to know whether identity information provided by third parties was trustworthy and accurate. The US ICAM Trust Framework Provider Adoption Process has provided the foundation for an ecosystem of trustworthy identity providers, but ICAM’s efforts will only be effective if trust framework providers and identity providers adopt it.” said Bob Blakley, VP and Research Director, Burton Group.

”The collaboration between Kantara Initiative and OIX marks a significant milestone on the ongoing work to ensure the highest levels of trust across all assurance levels for today’s online transactions,” said Andrew Nash, Sr. Director of Identity Services PayPal.

About Open Identity Exchange
The Open Identity Exchange (OIX) is a neutral, technology agnostic, nonprofit provider of certification trust frameworks for online identity. Its certification credentials can be used across multiple sites, jurisdictions and networks. OIX was founded by grants from the OpenID and Information Card Foundations and support from companies including Google, PayPal, AT&T, Equifax, VeriSign, Verizon, and CA technologies. For more information, visit www.openidentityexchange.org.

About Kantara Initiative
Kantara Initiative is a global, open, public-private, technology-agnostic forum comprised of identity ecosystem stakeholders. Kantara Initiative’s inspired mission is to promote technical interoperability and harmonization; to develop policy frameworks for operational interoperability and; to provide certification and assessment programs to grow trust in the standards, products, and service deployments. Kantara Initiative freely provides the governance and resources whereby diverse members of the ecosystem successfully collaborate on a diverse portfolio of common policy frameworks, technical specifications and deployment guidelines driven by the identity community, industry and governments from around the world. For more information about getting involved in Kantara Initiative, visit www.kantarainitiative.org.

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Media Contacts
Michelle Hunt
Kantara Initiative
Michelle.Hunt@ieee-isto.org
+1 732 981-3434

John Ehrig
Open Identity Exchange
jehrig@inventures.com
+1 925 275-6677

First off, I would like to would like to express my sympathy to those affected by the terrible earthquake that hit Chile this past weekend.

Envio mi palabra de aliento y de optimismo al pueblo Chileno. Tengo muy buenos amigos Chilenos y a todos les deseo lo mejor en vista de estas circunstancias, a sus familias y a todos los afectados… Las cosas de Dios son sin duda alguna indescrifrables.

In this blog post, I would like to share with you some recent developments in the world of identity assurance, which as you know from my recent blog posts: “Identity Assurance, an everyday life issue” part 1 and part 2, is a top of mind issue for me and for us here at Identropy. Quite frankly, I could not hope for better timing for these blogs to come about.

On Friday February 26th, 2010 the US Federal Government’s Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) Trust Framework Evaluation Team (TFET) reviewed Kantara Initiative‘s latest submission and granted it Provisional Approval as a Trust Framework Provider at Levels 1, 2 & non-crypto Level 3 under the Open Identity Solutions for Open Government program.  The removal of the provisional status will hinge on the release by TFET of additional guidance for assessors concerning privacy and Kantara’s adoption of this guidance.

This is for me an extraordinary milestone, not only in my role of Chair of the Identity Assurance Work Group, but as an identity assurance activist altogether.  Kantara submitted its application for the US Federal Government adoption of the Identity Assurance Framework (IAF) in November of 2009. Prior to that date, the IAWG has been working very hard, collaborating with Kantara and the Assurance Review Board (who oversees the Kantara Initiative Identity Assurance Certification Program) to achieve this important goal (albeit still under provisional status).

The significance of this milestone is that it represents an important step towards fostering the adoption of identity-enabled Government services at known levels of assurance, relying on identity credentials issued and managed by non-Government parties (referred to as Credential Service Providers in the IAF). It will create the right conditions for the certification program to be adopted in real-life scenarios and for the industry to benefit from a proven, best-of-breed certification program that effectively enables interoperability and trust. This means that the IAF will not be just a “paper” standard, incarnated in a compendium of documents, but an actual technology-agnostic program that organizations can certify against.

With the adoption of risk-based models, identity federation can achieve Internet scale, and facilitate public access to online information at specific levels of assurance.  With adoption will also come economies of scale and further collaboration and interoperability across industries and Governments.

As someone who has been involved in identity management and identity assurance for quite some time, I cannot help but feel excited about the times I live in, and optimistic about what is to come.

I do anticipate and hope for more endorsements of the IAF in the near future by other organizations, and more importantly, the start of a paradigm shift in the way we all think about identity, both within the Enterprise and in a federated environment.  Ultimately, this path will allow the identerati to focus on the real end goal: delivering identity-enabled solutions and services with the level of trust and confidence that is appropriate for the transactions being performed.

But this is just a first step…

Frank