Organizations take leadership role in driving trusted identity-enabled enterprise, SaaS and Cloud applications based on certified identity services
August 18, 2009 – Kantara Initiative, a global identity community working to solve harmonization and interoperability challenges among identity-enabled enterprise, Web 2.0 and Cloud applications and services, today announced that representatives from Aetna, BT, SUNET/NORDUNet and the US GSA have taken leadership positions on the Kantara Initiative Assurance Review Board (ARB). The ARB oversees the Grant of Rights for use of the Kantara Initiative Assurance Mark, a mark of quality demonstrating that organizations have met stringent identity management criteria outlined in the protocol independent Identity Assurance Framework (IAF).
Marks will initially be awarded in two categories, one to industry assessors indicating they meet requirements to assess identity services for compliance to the IAF, and one to identity services that have been certified by these assessors against the four identity assurance levels detailed in the IAF. Services earning the Kantara Initiative Assurance Mark have successfully satisfied the organizational management, identity proofing, and credential management criteria associated with each identity assurance level.
“With today’s news, Kantara Initiative is moving to reduce the business, governance and liability challenges organizations face when adding new partners and customers to their ‘trusted Cloud’ of external services,” said Mark Coderre, head of security architecture for Aetna. “Robust Kantara Initiative certification of identity services across a range of risk assessment criteria allows businesses to quickly establish trust with external parties, and to grow the value of these trusted relationships dynamically.”
Certified identity services eliminate the need for organizations to “reinvent the wheel” each time they need to assess the risk of accepting identity credentials from an outside party, making it easier and faster to deploy new services.
About the ARB
The ARB works with the Kantara Initiative Board of Trustees overseeing the Kantara Initiative Identity Assurance Certification Program, developed by Liberty Alliance and now moving forward within Kantara Initiative. The open membership structure of Kantara Initiative is bringing the right mix of identity assurance stakeholders together to advance certified identity services collaboratively. The first Kantara Initiative Identity Assurance Certification cycle is currently underway. The ARB will award Kantara Initiative Assurance Marks based on the results of this event. More information is available here http://tinyurl.com/r6le4r
